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JOURNAL

OF THE

Illinois
State Historical Society

Volume 13
April, 1920 to January, 1921

Entered at Washington, D. C, as Second Class Matter under Act of Congress
of July 15, 1894.

fe)ll

Vol. 13 APRIL, 1920 No. 1

JOURNAL

OF THE

68449-

Illinois State
Historical Society

Published Quarterly by the

Illinois State Historical Society

Springfield, Illinois

Entered at Washington, D. C, as Second Class Matter under Act of Congress of July 16

1894, accepted for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in section 1103,

Act of October 3, 1917, authorized on July 3, 1918

[Printed by authority of the State of Illinois.]

6CHNEPP & BARNES, PRINTERS, SPRINGFIELD, ILL.
51548— 3M

JOUENAL

ILLINOIS STATE HISTOEICAL SOCIETY

Jessie Palmer Weber, Editor

Associate Editors:
Andrew Russel H. W, Clendenin

Edward C. Page George W. Smith

OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY.

President
Dr. Otto L. Schmidt Chicago

Vice Presidents

George A. Lawrence Galesburg

L. Y. Sherman Springfield

Richard Yates Springfield

Ensley Moore Jacksonville

Directors

Edmund J. James, President University of Illinois

Urbana-Cliampaign

E. B. Greene, University of Illinois Urbana-Cliampaign

Mrs. Jessie Palmer Weber Springfield

Charles H. Rammelkamp, President Illinois College

Jacksonville

George W. Smith, Southern Illinois State Normal University

Carbondale

Orrin N. Carter Evanston

Richard V. Carpenter Belvidcre

Edward C. Page, Northern Illinois State Normal School

DeKalb

Andrew Russel Jacksonville

Walter Colyer Albion

James A. James, Northwestern University Evanston

H. W. Clendenin Springfield

Col. D. C. Smith Normal

Clinton L. Conkling Springfield

John H. Hauberg Rock Island

Secretary and Treasurer

Mrs. Jessie Palmer Weber Springfield

Assistant Secretary

Miss Georgia L. Osborne Springfield

Honorary Vice Presidents

The Presidents of Local Historical Societies

CONTENTS.

I. Officers of the Society vii

II. Appeal to the Historical Society and the General

Public for contributions of Historical Material xi

III. Rev. James G. K. McClure, D.D., LL.D.: Some
Pastors and Pastorates during the century of
Presbyterianism in Illinois 1

IV. Dr. Cyrus B. Plattenburg : In St. Louis during

the crisis. Civil War 16

V. William Hawley Smith : Old Time Campaigning

and the Story of a Lincoln Campaign Song ... 23

VI. Mildred Seaney: Sketch of Samuel Seaney. ... 33

VII. Gains Paddock: Retrospection of Four Score

Years 42

VIII. Smith D. Atkins : Dedication of the Wilder Bri-
gade Monument, Sept. 20, 1899 51

IX. Adolf Sumerlin: Capt. Joseph Withington,

Civilian, soldier and statesman 64

X. Jesse M. Thompson, Pike County settled 100

years ago, 1820 71

XI. Alfred B. Balch : Pioneer Log Church, Coles

County, Illinois 85

XII. Delavan Woman's Club and Tazewell County
Historical Society. Memorial of Mrs. Abbie
A. Fay Newman, eai-ly teacher of Delavan,
Illinois 87

XIII. Theodore G. Risley : Early Methodism in Mount

Carmel, Illinois 106

CONTENTS— Concluded.

XrV. William R. Sandliam: A Lost Stark County

Town 109

XV. William R. Sanclbam: A Short Courtship and
a Happy Married Life. A Reminiscence of the
early History of Stark County 113

XVI. Editorials.

Annual Meeting of the Illinois State Historical
Society 119

Dr. Edmund J. James resigns as President of the
University of Illinois 120

Illinois Women vote in the Preferential Primary
for President of the United States 122

Homage paid to the memory of Abraham Lincoln
by the Trade Unionists of India 123

Great Storm at Chicago and other places in Illi-
nois 124

Minor Notices 125

Gifts of books, letters, pictures, and manuscripts
to the Illinois State Historical Library and
Society 130

XVII. Necrology.

Miss Nelle Snyder 135

William A. Meese 138

Charles F. Gunther 141

XVIII. List of Publications of the Illinois Histor-
ical Library and Society 143

AN APPEAL FOR HISTORICAL MATERIAL

(Members please read this circular letter.)
Books and pamphlets on American history, biography,
and genealogj', particularly those relating to Illinois and the
'W^est ; works on Indian tribes, and American archaeology and
ethnology ; reports of societies and institutions of every kind,
educational, economic, social, political, cooperative, fraternal,
statistical, industrial, charitable; scientific publications of
states or societies ; books or pamphlets relating to all wars in
which Illinois has taken part, especially collections of mater-
ial relating to the great world war ; privately printed works ;
newspapers; maps and charts; engravings, photographs;
autographs; coins; antiquities, encyclopedias, dictionaries,
and bibliographical works. Especially do we desire

EVERYTHING RELATING TO ILLINOIS

1. Every book or pamphlet on any subject relating to
Illinois, or any part of it ; also every book or pamphlet writ-
ten by an Illinois citizen, whether published in Illinois or
elsewhere; materials for Illinois history; old letters, journals.

2. Manuscripts; narratives of the pioneers of Illinois;
original papers on the early history and settlement of the
territory; adventures and conflicts during the early settle-
ment, the Indian troubles, or the great rebellion or other
wars ; biographies of the pioneers ; prominent citizens and
public men of every county, either living or deceased, together
with their portraits and autographs; a sketch of the settle-
ments of every township, village, and neighborhood in the
State, with the names of the first settlers. We solicit articles
on every subject connected with Illinois history.

3. City ordinances, proceedings of mayor and council;
reports of committees of council ; pamphlets or papers of any
kind printed by authority of the city; reports of boards of
trade and commercial associations ; maps of cities and plats
of town sites or of additions thereto.

4. Pamphlets of all kinds ; annual reports of societies ;
sermons or addresses delivered in the State; minutes of
church conventions, synods, or other ecclesiastical bodies of
Illinois ; political addresses ; railroad reports ; all sucli,
whether published in pamphlet or newspaper.

5. Catalogues and reports of colleges and other insti-
tutions of learning; annual or other reports of school boards,
school superintendents, and school committees; educational
pamphlets, programs and papers of every kind, no matter how
small or apparently unimportant.

6. Copies of the earlier laws, journals and reports of
our territorial and State Legislatures; earlier Governors'
messages and reports of State Officers ; reports of State chari-
table and other State institutions.

7. Files of Illinois neAvspapers and magazines, espec-
ially complete volumes of past years, or single numbers even.
Publishers are earnestly requested to contribute their publi-
cations regulai'ly, all of which will be carefully preserved and
bound.

8. Maps of the State, or of counties or townships, of any
date; views and engravings of buildings or historic places;
drawings or photographs of scenery; paintings; jDortraits,
etc., connected with Illinois history.

9. Curiosities of all kinds ; coins, medals, paintings ; por-
traits; engravings; statuary; war relics; autograph letters
of distinguished persons, etc.

10. Facts illustrative of our Indian tribes — their his-
tory, characteristics, religion, etc., sketches of prominent
chiefs, orators and warriors, together with contributions of
Indian weapons, costumes, ornaments, curiosities, and imple-
ments ; also stone axes, spears, arrow heads, pottery, or other
relics.

It is important that the work of collecting historical ma-
terial in regard to the part taken by Illinois in the great world
war be done immediately before valuable material is lost or
destroyed.

In brief, everything that, by the most liberal construction,
can illustrate the history of Illinois, its early settlement, its
progress, or present condition. All will be of interest to suc-
ceeding generations. Contributions will be credited to the
donors in the published reports of the Library and Society,
and will be carefully preserved in the State liouse as the
property of the State, for the use and benefit of the jDeople for
all time.

Communications or gifts ma^^ be addressed to the Librari-
an and Secretary'.

(Mrs.) Jessie Palmer Weber.

Some Pastors and Pastorates

During the Century

Presbyterianism in Illinois

An Address Delivered

Oct. 19, 1916

In the State House, Springfield, Illinois

In Connection with the Celebration by the Synod of Illinois

A Century of Presbyterianism in Illinois

The Rev. James G. K. McClure, D. D.. LL. D.

President of

McCormick Theological Seminary

Chicago

SOME PASTORS AND PASTORATES DURING THE

CENTURY OF PRESBYTERIANISM IN

ILLINOIS.

James Goke King McClure.

In the writings of Walter Scott there is a character for-
ever to be remembered. There actually was a man — Robert
Paterson — who from pure love of noble lives spent his years in
endeavoring to perpetuate their memory. Accompanied by a
little white horse, he was wont to visit all the church yards in
the Highlands of Scotland, search among the grass until he
found the stones that marked the graves of the worthies and
then with chisel and hammer clean the stones and cut deeper
into them the names of these worthies — men who had lived
and perhaps suffered in the cause of pure religion. People
called him "Old Mortality", and it was no infrequent sight
in traversing a moor to see him, with his pony browsing at
his side, hard at work, making some deserted grave stone of
the wilds tell again its story of Christian service. Motives
of sincere devotion induced him to dedicate many years to
perform this tribute to the memory of the deceased warriors
of the church. Sir Walter tells us he considered himself as
fulfilling a sacred duty while renewing to the eyes of posterity
the decaying emblems of the zeal and sufferings of their fore-
fathers, and thereby trimming, as it were, the beacon light
which was to inspire future generations to defend their relig-
ion even unto blood.

In much the same spirit as that of Old Mortality I address
myself to the task committed to me — to make live again the
men who in the pastorates within the present Synod of Illinois
during the past century did splendidly, built permanently and
left us a stimulating example. This task is peculiarly agree-
able to me. One special i;tterance of Clirist has always been
at the center of my heart: "Others have labored and j^e are
entered into their labors." Our debt to the past may be for-

gotten. But if it is forgotten we lose out of our lives all ap-
preciation of those wlio dared and died in our behalf, and we
deny ourselves one of the most elevating and sanctifying in-
fluences that can enter into our being. There is nothing that
I would rather do than meet appropriately the privilege now
granted me.

As I undertake this privilege I note two interesting facts.
One is that the Presbyterian form of government is such that
it does not tend to produce super-man personalities. In our
form of government every pastor is the equal of every other.
No one can lord it over another either in title or in fact. We
all stand upon the same level. The man who has a parish of
twenty souls has a vote that is equal to the vote of the man
who has a parish of a thousand souls : he has the same rights
on the floor of Presbytery and Synod, he may speak his senti-
ments with equal frankness and (best of all) he may expect
that his sentiments if they are wise, will have exactly as much
influence as the sentiments of any other. The Presbyterian
Church has meant to be a church of the people, a church in-
deed with a message high as heaven's King but with a fellow-
ship low as earth's multitudes. Its purpose has been to avoid
anything and everything that savored of aristocracy. We
should accordingly expect, as we survey the annals of the past,
that while there are thousands of pastors who have blessed
their day and place, there will be few of outstanding joromi-
nence. In this fact lies our glory.

The second fact is this. It is utterly impossible to name
in a few minutes all the men who in the twelve Presbyteries
of this Synod have been true and noble pastors. I would be
glad to call the roll of every one who with a loving pastor's
heart (and to me there is nothing on earth so conducive to the
world's good as a loving pastor's heart) has prayed and toiled
and labored for souls, and place a wreath forever upon him —
but that cannot be. All I can do is to select — with inadequate
discrimination — a few pastors who have lived and died, and
through these few give suggestion of the contribution rendered
to the Church and to the State, to religion and to education,
to morality and to general welfare, by all.

First, I introduce Benjamin Franklin Spilman, pastor of
the oldest Presbyterian Church in Illinois, the Church at

Sharon organized in tlie fall of 1816. The church building was
of hewed logs. It had one window — of four small panes of
glass. Tins window was at the side of the pulpit. Whatever
light was denied the people, it was evidently felt that the
preacher needed help from heaven. A hearth of flat rock laid
in the floor near the center of the house served for burning
charcoal in zero weather. It was here in 1829 that Mr. Spil-
tnan was ordained and installed. As he knelt for ordination^
he thriftily took a white silk handkerchief from his pocket and
spread it on the floor. He was a t^'pical man of the time.
He was accustomed to say that when he commenced preachmg
his library consisted of three volumes, a Confession of Faith,
a Bible and a Hymn Book. But they were enough. With them
he wrought mightily. It is true he remained but a little time
at Sharon, he served also the church at Sha^^^leetown, which
at the beginning of his work consisted of one member, called
in those days "a female". As yet, in such records, a person
had not obtained the name of ''woman." His saddle was
his study. The captains of the Lord in those days were largely
of the cavalry. In that saddle he in a period of six years
traveled 3,688 miles and in that saddle in the same period he
prepared 659 sermons. For a time he was the only Presby-
terian minister connected with the General Assembly residing
and statedly laboring in this State. His method of conducting
the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was to hold services for
four days and to hold such services twice a year. He organ-
ized some twenty churches. He Avas given to hospitality. If
unexpected guests came to his small frame house — which had
one bed, he would divide the bedding, leaving half on the bed
where his gniests might rest, while the other half was deposited
on the floor for himself "and "wife.

This pastor was a thoughtful, scholarly, prayerful man.
He was a man of education, a graduate of a college, a student
of theology. His salary was meager. When he was visiting
all the Presbyterian churches of Illinois and the western part
of Indiana as agent of the Western Foreign Missionary So-
ciety at Pittsburgh, his salary for the year was $300 and his
traveling expenses, $45.18. ^Tierever he went he brought en-

largement of vision and understanding of truth. His heart
was burdened with solicitude for souls, and re\T-vals waited
on his ministry.

While this Benjamin F. Spilman, is often spoken of as
the father of Presbyterianism in his own portion of Illinois,
Salmon Giddings, is similarly- designated for another portion.
He preached as early as 1816 in Kaskaskia. It is true he never
became a settled pastor in Illinois, but he organized seven
churches in Illinois — and helped start the influences which
made ready for pastorates by others. The condition at Ed-
wardsville when he came there is illuminating. Such a person
as the widow of the Kev. Dr. John Blair Smith, at one time
President of Hampden-Sichiey College, Virginia, came to Ed-
wardsville in 1817, and she was there eighteen months be-
fore she heard a single sermon preached. But it was of such
people as herself and of people of Scotch Irish descent that
Salmon Giddings formed his seven churches. How this man
became a Presbyterian is illustrative. He was a Congrega-
tionalist Avhen he started from New England, but without any
ecclesiastical procedure he became a Presbyterian minister —
simjply in traveling from New England to the Mississippi.

Here I rest your thought a minute while I explain how it
was that ministers settled in Illinois, what conditions they
found and what hardships they met. Eepresentatives of mis-
sionary societies had come all the wetj from the east on horse-
back and had penetrated Southern Illinois — and then had sent
back word, or had taken back word, of the number of people
here, their lack of religious privileges and their immorality.
"This country", they said, "is desperately destitute of Bibles.
In Kaskaskia, a place containing from 80 to 100 families, there
are, it is thought, not more than four of five Bibles." Eiver
towns were apt to have many rough characters in them. Sun-
day- was a day of business and money -making. It was no easy
task for a church to organize and then proclaim standards
and observances entirely different from those in vogue. Mini-
sters had dangers to meet from swollen rivers which they
swam, with their horses and saddle bags, in all seasons, and
from prairie storms which often blinded the eyes of man and
beast alike and in which they became lost. There were perils

too from Indians in some parts. The log cabin manse in many
instances was a place of exposure.

But there was a remnant of people — from Virginia, Penn-
sylvania and Kentucky, — who could he dei^ended upon. It
was indeed largely Scotch-Irish — of whom a keen witted Celt
once said, "When the potato crop and all other crops fail, the
Scotch-Irish can live on the Shorter Catechism and the Sab-
bath." Though they were living on the Shorter Catechism and
the Sabbath, and were living well, well enough at least to nour-
ish their backbone, they were ready for other food and they
welcomed the coming of the preacher and stood by him in his
work. Perhaps they could not spell any better than Daniel
Boone when he wrote of his killing a bear, "cilled a bear", but
though they were without book education they had clear vi-
sions of duty, and firm convictions of right and determined al-
legiance to Grod — and they did not fail. In those days when two
men met and stopped to taU<: they stood back to back to watch
both directions for the lurking Indian, and in those same days
those very men put back to back with the minister and gave
him a sense of security and power.

Now we come to a third name — John M. Ellis, who was
installed pastor of the church at Jacksonville in 1830. The
missionary spirit was in his veins. He had intended to go to
India, but he heard of this western country with its rapidly
increasing population and its lack of religious institutions, and
he reasoned that if America could be made godly, its power
for aifecting the heathen world would be augmented. It was to
increase America's moral force that he made his way from
Boston in six weeks (the Ohio being low) to Illinois. He had
been charged at the East to build up ' ' an institution of learn-
ing which should bless the west for all time." Visiting Jack-
son\T.lle in 1828 he was charmed with the place and the people
and finally bought 80 acres of land and set stakes for a build-
ing. Then he sent out a letter describing the purpose to erect
a seminary of learning. It reached Yale College. The result
was that seven young men decided to take up residence in
Illinois and have part in the building of a college.

Let us remember that there were no schools for the higher
education of young women at that time in this state except the
convents in the old French settlements. It was therefore a

new move when Mrs. Ellis took pupils into her own home in
anticipation of the building of a Female Academy, that home
being a log cabin of one story, eighteen by twenty feet, and
trained them. A woman of sensitive refinement and of elegant
accomplishments she made that home a place of refreshment
to every one who entered it. She had fine poetic taste and
superior culture. She was the prototype and expression of
the pastor's wife in the hundreds of churches later to spring
up in Illinois — the pastor's wife to whom this Sjmod owes as
much in many ways as to the pastor himself — the unpro-
claimed influence that sustained his faith and courage, gave
balance to his judgment and won the devotion of his people.
Mrs. Ellis died at her post, with unflinching courage. Hers
was a martyrdom indeed.

The pastorate of Mr. Ellis was brief — but it helped start
a movement characteristic of Presbyterianism in this state as
in all states — the movement of education. Mr. Ellis was an
outspoken man whose words sometimes cut deep. He issued
a statement describing the uneducated ministry in Illinois —
which was resented by some ministers — but it was probably
true concerning persons of some communions Avho possessed
zeal and noise, but not knowledge. His pastorate started the
educational development of this Synod, which has advanced
into so many strong and useful institutions and which is a
safe guard to our homes and our churches.

It is right that at this point a new element should be in-
troduced, the pastorate as it appeared in the Presbyterian
body which was called by others "Cumberland", as the first
disciples of Jesus were called by others "Christian" — terms
which each bod^^ allowed to remain attached as distinctive, in
a way. The origin of this body must be traced to the great
revivals which moved through the Cumberland valleys and
mountains and affected adjoining portions of the country.
These re\nvals were marked by great power. Oftentimes
audiences of hundreds, gathered in the open countrj^ were
swayed by an influence that could be accounted for only as
divine. Men and women became conscious of their sinfulness,
and then accepted God's forgiveness with complete consecra-
tion of their lives. The warmth of their conviction was
fervid. In many cases while listening to preaching they were

seized by a jerking agitation of their bodies and they fell to
the ground — coming to consciousness in due time with an
abounding faith in Christ and with a detennined purpose to
serve him. So far as I am aware, no careful student of tliese
scenes has ever been able to explain them apart from the
working of God.

It is an historic coincidence that the man who organized
the First Presbyterian Church of Illinois at Sharon in 1816,
the Eev. James McGready, was the main instrument of the
revival influences out of which grew the Cumberland Presby-
terian Church — Avliom the Kentucky sjTiod suspended from
the ministry for endorsing the revival measures and sjnnpa-
thizing with the fathers, doctrines and measures of the Cum-
berland Presbyterians (Logan, H. of C. Ch. ch. 24). So far
as I can learn, the first Cumbei-land pastor was Rev. David
Wilson McKin who in 1818 settled in this state and organized
the first regular congregation, the Hopewell, now Enfield
Church. He was a convert of the revival of 1800. He learned
the tailor trade and at times during his whole life worked at
his trade when in need of support for his family. He often
came home from preaching tired, and sat up all night labor-
ing to secure subsistence for his family before starting out on
another missionary tour. He preached at times in a mixed
jean suit, but a spectator declared he was the neatest man he
ever saw. He preached with vigor and with beauty. He or-
ganized many churches. He had appointments far and near,
in churches, schools and private houses. He had a camp
meeting ground near his church. In those days people came
from a hundred miles around. An acre or more was sot apart
for the tents. Everyone expected to be blessed. Preaching on
the "Pure River and the Tree of Life" he was so brilliant that
the concourse burst into loud hallelujahs. They seemed to
see the gloiy depicted. The preacher sprang from the pulpit,
conversions followed, multitudes traced their salvation to his
instrumentality. Among them was Joel Knight, later kno^vn
as Father Knight. No wonder that the name of McKin was
perpetuated in McKin Presbytery,

There was another pastor, Rev. John McCutcheon Berry
who must have a word of reference, settled in Sangamon
County, the only preacher of the Cumberlands in all the

northern part of the state. He fought in the battle of Xew
Orleans, Jan. 8, 181.5. TThile exposed to instant death, with
fellow soldiers falling all aronnd him, he promised God that
if spared to return home he wonld serve him to the best of
his ability. He had long rebelled against what he thonght
God's will, his preaching of the gospel. He was accnstomed
to say, "The 8th day of January made Andrew Jackson
President and me a preacher.' And then, as a trne ambassa-
dor of God. he would add, ' ' I would not swap my place for the
President's."

This Mr. Berry was opposed to the liquor traffic. Indeed
he was its uncompromising foe. Lite every other Presbyter-
ian pastor who has served this state during the last one hun-
dred years, he recognized the evils connected with intemper-
ance: and the sorrow and disgrace of intoxicating drink
weighted his heart. The first temperance society of the state
was organized in the First Presbyterian church of Springfield,
known as "The Washingtonian Society." He spoke and
labored against the sale of ardent spirits — as indeed what
truly patriotic man will not do ? Abraham Lincolu heard him.
Abraham Lincoln was impressed by him. The time came —
after Mr. Lincoln had risen to eminence as a lawyer, that a
grog shop was exerting a bad influence upon some husbands.
The wives of these men united their forces, assailed the shop,
knocked the heads out of the barrels, broke the bottles and
smashed things generally. The women were prosecuted.
Then Mr. Lincoln volunteered to defend them ! In the course
of a forceful argument upon the evils of the use of ardent
spirits, and of the traffic in them — ^while many in the crowded
court room were bathed in tears. Mr. Lineohi turned, and
pointing with his big hand toward Mr. Berry who was stand-
ing near said. "There is a man who years ago was instru-
mental in convincing: me of the evils of the sale and use of
spirituous Hquors. I am glad that I ever saw him. I am glad
I ever heard his testimony on this terrible subject."

It was said then as it may be said now that Mr. Berry was
more honored by that testimony than he would have been if
afterwards Mr. Lincohi had made him Secretary of State.

The time has now come for me to tell you the story of
Aratus Kent. And what a storv it is I He was of Xew Eng-

land stock, with the best elements of the Puritan flowing in
his blood. Thorouffhly educated, he was sought by several
eastern churches. But he had heard of the thousands of min-
ers and merchants living in the Mississippi Valley without
church or school. Accordingly he appeared before the Ameri-
can Home Missionary- Society and said, "Send me to a place
in the west so hard that no one else will take it." The society
sent him to Galena. He landed in Galena April 18th, 1829,
27 days after leaving New York City. On the river there was
not another minister above St. Louis. Xorthem Illinois, Wis-
consin, Iowa and Minnesota were occupied by Indians. The
settlement at Chicago had not begun. Chicago was but a
marsh and — the site of Ft. Dearborn. He was the first pio-
neer missionary of Xorthem Illinois. TThen he reached Ga-
lena there was no church of any denomination, Protestant or
Catholic, within 200 miles, no Sabbath, no God recognized, and
there was no communication with the rest of the world while
the Mississippi was frozen. Profanity and gambling had ob-
tained an alarming and sickening prevalence. The few who
had professed religion in their more eastern homes had fallen
into habits of indifference or wrong. It was a Sabbath morn-
ing, when he landed. He secured a store, brushed the shavings
out and started services. It took nearly .3 years of toil be-
fore he could organize a church and even then he had only six
members, out of a population of some thousands of people —
only two of the six living in Galena itself, the other four living
out of Galena, from five to forty miles. In 1841 he was in-
stalled pastor. He was^ vigorous personality. In one of his
early tours, coming to a bluff that commanded an extensive
view of the valley of the Mississippi, and of the prairies on
either side, he dropped down from his horse, took off his
hat, and with uplifted hand said aloud. "I take possession of
this land for Christ I" He went everv-where to do his part
in securing that possession. He had a record of travel cover-
ing 20,000 miles and 479 different places of preaching with
3,000 sermons. As early as 1843 he could say "I have been in
perils of water six times, perils in the wilderness three nights,
several times lost, but out of them aU the Lord has delivered
me." On one occasion he started to attend the S^Tiod of
Indiana which included the State of ULinois, at Vandalia, then

the capital of Illinois. One day he rode 40 miles without see-
ing a house ; once he swam a river ; once he was lost a whole
day. After 19 days of travel he arrived. But the Synod had
adjourned ! Pie jDerf ormed labors, endured hardships and en-
countered exposures for Christ which he never would have
attempted for wealth or fame. It is said of him that no man
has lived in the Northwest who has left behind him such an
impress of his life and has influenced so many minds. He
aided nine young men to study for the ministry and induced
many others to be ministers. He was the first President of
the Board of Trustees of Beloit College and the founder of
Eockford College. He and Mrs. Kent took into their home,
reared and educated 12 orphan children — all becoming useful
members of society. On a salary of $600 a year, he and Mrs.
Kent for 36 years of wedded life, ordering their household
without employing outside help, gave away $7,000 and laid by
a decent support for old age ! An unpretentious stone marks
his grave in the old cemetery at Galena — but for grandeur of
conception and for magnitude of service no man in the whole
ministry deserves so conspicious a recognition as Aratus
Kent.

Still another pastor should now be presented represent-
ing a different kind of work — the long time pastor who quietly
abides by his flock and is not an itinerant in any respect — the
Eev. Dr. Isaac Amada Cornelison of Washington. When he
came into Illinois from Pennsylvania he settled at what was
known as Crow Meadow in Marshall County, where govern-
ment land could be bought at that time for fifty cents an acre,
now worth from $250 to $300 per acre. Prairie chicken could
be shot from a nearby fence in case of unexpected company,
and a toothsome meal thus be provided in a hurry. After
serving at Crow Meadow and at Low Point and at MataAvan
he accepted the earnest call of the church at Washington. Here
he remained, with the exception of one year ditring which
he served as pastor of the Logan Square church in
Philadelphia, forty-six years. About two years before
his resig-nation he became afflicted with blindness so
that he was unable to read the Scriptures. The con-
gregation would not consider his surrender of the pulpit and
when in 1910 he did give up his work the congregation made

him Pastor Emeritus and surrounded him witli love and de-
votion.

Two facts of liis pastorate — beside its length and faith-
fulness — give it eminence. One is the fact of his authorship.
He published two books, one "The Relation of Religion to
Civil Government in the United States," the other. "The
Natural History of the Religious Feelings." In such author-
ship he was representative of pastors all over the Synod who
in the past century have written and issued pamphlets and
books bearing upon all phases of human thought and human
need. They have studied local history and presei'ved it in
print, they have dealt with every feature of educational, moral
and religious questions, and have given their views in maga-
zines and in bound volumes. Busy as they have been with
the preaching of the gospel and with the absorbing duties of
the pastorate, they have made time to ci'eate a literature of
large value.

Then there is this eminent fact in Dr. Cornelison's life—
his interest in ecclesiastical procedure. Together with Col.
James M. Rice of Peoria Presbytery he was instrumental in
bringing to the front and finally securing the adoption of, what
is known as the "Peoria Overture" — an Overture that simpli-
fies the workings of the annual General Assembly by providing
for the designation of all Conunittees immediately upon the
convening of the Assembly — with truly representative basis —
so that the Assembly stai'ts upon its work with the least pos-
sible delay. Dr. Cornelison was a dutiful and intelligent Pres-
b5i:er. He knew Presbyterian usages, and could moderate Sy-
nod with grace and firmness. He was a man of statesmanlike
wisdom and he exemplified the possibility inherent in every
pastorate of influencing the entire denomination. He pre-
served the bloom of youth into advanced years.

One single word must here be introduced concerning the
Rev. William Kirkpatrick Stewart who was pastor at Van-
dalia while it was still the Capital of Illinois. He it was that
introduced the first Protestant church bell in the whole Missis-
sippi Valley, it is claimed. This Bell was presented to the
Presbyterian congregation, Vandalia, Illinois, by Romulus

Eiggs, Esq., a mercliaiit of Pliiladelpliia, in tlie name of Ms
infant daughter, Miss Illinois Riggs, and bore the inscription :

ILLINOIS RIGGS

TO THE PRESBYTERIAN CONGREGATION

VANDALIA

1830

See, Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society.

Vol. 2, no. 4, Jan. 1910. P. 79.

There was the Roman Catholic house of worship at Kas-
kaskia with its bell, but the first Protestant bell in the Mis-
sissippi valley "was that of Mr. Stewart.

I said at the outset that the Presbyterian pastor holds no
lordship over his fellow ministers. Nor does he. There was
one pastor in this Synod, however, who in his time exercised
such commanding influence by the worthiness of his character
and the wisdom of his counsel that he could truly say, "There
is not a Presbyterian Church of conspicuous size within 300
miles of Chicago that has not consulted me with reference to
the calling of its pastor." That man was Robert W. Pat-
terson, pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of Chicago.

In a certain sense he Avas the child of this Synod because
he was a graduate of the College founded within the Synod
at Jacksonville. He came to Chicago as a licentiate in 1842.
Chicago at the time was a low, muddy town of about 6,000 in-
habitants, having perhaps ten or a dozen brick edifices in it of
very moderate proportions, stores included. The Second
Church, a new organization of 26 members, asked him to be its
pastor. For three months the congi'egation worshipped in
what was called "The City Saloon" — the name of a popular
hall, before the word "Saloon" had acquired its unhealthy
reputation. This very name as then used throws light upon
the character of Chicago 's population at that time : they were
bright, active, enterprising and generally church goers, not
habitues of the ordinary drinking place. With a nucleus of
such material he began his work.

The slaverj^ issue was in the air. Lovejoy, a Presbyter-
ian minister had been shot at Alton, ^''arious \T^ews were held
as to the best method of attacking slavery. Some men be-
lieved in constant outspokenness and denunciation. Others

believed in a quieter but none the less earnest devotion to
the abolition of slavery. Dr. Patterson was of this second
g:roup. He consequently exposed himself to the charge of
being a pro-slavery man and was designated "the dough faced
minister." But his attitude in this matter as in every other
was of "the quiet, deep i-unning sort, not fitful nor spas-
modic." He was never vociferous, nor was he ever volatile.
Little by little he gathered about hhn a band of men and
women of the highest value to Chicago and to the Northwest.
Stalwart in person but unobtrusive, he moulded life by his
considerate wisdom. The strongest minds in Chicago sat be-
neath his ministry and listened with respect to his convincing
statements of fundamental Christian truth. He thought
deeply, he meditated extendedly, he read widely. Every phase
of philosophy and of theology and of education was familiar
to him. His mind was penetrating — his process Avas thorough.
When he had finished a subject, it had been comprehensively
and completely treated.

He became the most widely Imown man as he was the larg-
est and ablest man in the pastorate of his day. A self-reliant
and independent man, he looked with fear on any thing that
seemed to limit freedom of thinking. He believed in giving
to Presbyteries all possible rights and he disbelieved in deny-
ing those rights to Presbyteries by centralization of powers
in the General Assembly. He felt that the Westminster Con-
fession of Faith, admirably adapted for the age when it was
constructed, 250 years ago, was cumbrous for this age and
should be simplified and reduced in size. He looked for more
and more light to come to Christ's Church through the leader-
ship of the Holy Spirit, and preserved a sweet, cheery, hope-
ful spirit until his djdng day. Perhaps he never was so loved
— never so much revered, as after he had surrendered all
public duties and was a man among men. His plea for the at-
tacked had not always been successful, as when he argued that
Professor Swing was entitled to more tolerant treatment than
he received, and argued that condemnation would accentuate
not correct, the situation — but though he saw the unfortunate
effects on Presl)yterianisni in Chicago of the Swing trial —
which it took a whole generation of years to outlive — he pre-
served his serenity undimned. "Practically the whole of his

extraordinary career as pastor, ecclesiastical leader, college
president, theological professor and voluminous writer for
the press, was j^assed in this Commonwealth."

The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, having touched
upon the lives of several of those who in other days had glori-
fied God and blessed the earth, exclaimed, "And what shall I
say more!" So I repeat, 'What shall I say more.' For the
time would fail me to tell of Jonathan Edwards and John
Weston of Peoria Presbytery, of J. G. Bergen and William
Logan Tarbet of Springfield Presbytery, of Wm. H. Temple-
ton and Thomas E. Spilman of Ewing Presbytery, of James
A. Piper and Garnett A. Pollock of Ottawa Presbyteiy, of
Eobert Conover and Charles N. Wilder of Bloomington Pres-
bytery, of Thomas R. Johnson and Samuel Cleland of Eock
River Presbytery, of Joseph S. Braddock and I. E. Cary of
the Presbytery of Freeport, of John M. Robinson and Ben-
jamin G. Swan of the Presb)4ery of Cairo, of A. T. Norton and
Albert Hale of the Presbytery of Alton, of George C. Noyes
and John PI. Barrows of the Chicago Presb3i:ery and of the
devoted men of the Rushville and Mattoon Presbyteries.

"Tliese all had witness borne to them through their faith.

And were men renowned for their power,

Giving counsel by their understanding.

Such as have brought tidings in prophecies.

Wise were their words in their instruction,

Men richly furnished with ability,

Living peaceably in their habitations.

All these were honored in their generations.

And were the glory of their times.

Yea, they were men of mercy.

Whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten.

Their bodies are buried in peace,

But their name liveth for evermore.

For the memorial of virtue is immortal.

Because it is known with God and with men."

Yes, known with God are those whose names have been men-
tioned, and known with Him also are the hundreds upon hun-
dreds of names not mentioned, names, dear names, of His
own godly ministers who in village, town and city have la-
bored for Him, and have labored with Him, and have

helped make this earth tlie earth of Christ's re-
demption. All honor to them! The were supreme ideal-
ists. They strove to put the permanent into the in-
dividual and into society. They builded for eternity.
Among all the sons of men, statesmen, warriors, inventors,
there are none whose work is so imperishable as the work
of those who teach and who live the Gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ !

But not to them alone be the praise. Eather let it be to
the congregations, the men and women engaged in home, in
farm, in shop, in store, who were the churches and who in
the churches and through the churches, upheld, supported and
gave power, beauty and prosperity to the work of the pastors.
It is the people, the thoughtful, self-sacrificing, godly people
in Presbyterianism who are the source and expression of the
church of Jesus Christ; and to them, the elders, the deacons
and the members of the churches be the praise, under God, for
the past 100 years in the Synod of Illinois.

And I saw in spirit a great company in white robes, with
palms in their hands, and with the light of the glory of God
upon their faces. Then I looked for "Old Mortality" — whose
mission once was so necessary — but "Old Mortality" no more
could be found. Then I beheld an angel among these sanctified
ones, the angel of Christ's opened sepulchre, the angel of
eternal youth, and I said, "Who are these and whence came
theyt" And he said, "These are they who in the pulpits and
in the churches of Illinois were written in the Lamb's Book of
Life." And as he stood among them — their representative
I said, "What is thy name? Hast thou given them thy name?
And he said, I have given them My name and My name and
their name is "New Immortality".

IN ST. LOUIS DURING THE "CRISIS."

*By Dr. Cyrus B. Plattenburg.

The lad of fifteen had been working his way to St. Louis
from Keokuk on the stern -Avheeled steamer "Amit Lettie."
His father had preceded him, and was in business in that city.
As he was working to earn his j^assage on the steamer
the lad faithfully made berths, waited on table, and
scrubbed woodwork, but as he leaned over the rail
along Avith other cabin boys and watched that great
levee as the boat made a circle to come around to
the wharf boat, he felt amply repaid for his exertions, for
there never was such a scene anywhere in the world as that
cotton and sugar covered mile front, with negroes driving
mules tandem to drays loaded ten feet high ; stcA^edores haul-
ing and pulling things in all directions, the odds and ends
that made up the pile of freight, and above all a rumble that
was indescribable. As he made his way up into the City after
landing, his black oil cloth carpet bag in his hand, the size of
those great buildings, three stories and some even four, over-
powered him, and the stores all looked most palatial to the
lad from Keokuk.

He found his father's store at 6th and Pine St., in one of
the few business blocks west of 4th St., and his father was
indeed glad to see one of his own, and the one of his own
soon got to know the lay of the town and spent his time, when
not at work, wandering around that old place that was so
different from any he had ever seen before, for there were old
aristocrats in bell-crowned hats, with ruffled shirt bosoms,
brass buttoned coats, and trousers with straps, old colored
mammies everywhere with bandanna handkerchiefs on their
heads and market baskets on their arms, or carrying or wheel-
ing the babies of their white owners, for there were slaves

• The writer of this paper never returned to St. Louis to reside. He enlisted
In the Navy at Viclcsburg, and at the end of the war, the family settled in
Illinois and have remained here since that time. Dr. Plattenburg is now liv-
ing at the James King Home, Chicago.

there and at least one place where they sold them at auction.
Young blades that were the real thing were always in evidence.
Some parts of the city Avere as French as New Orleans, and the
lad used to delight to stroll down Carondelet Avenue past the
French market and the French stores, and finally bring up at
the Arsenal where he could see through the gate a sentry
and buildings that housed the garrison and the stores of am-
munition that were part of the Government. Of a Sunday
though his favorite trip was to the levee, and on his way down
Vine Street he always stopped to peep through between two
great gates in the opening of a large cell-shaped brick building
at a lot of old wagons that had been used by the Laclede Fur
Company in earlj^ days to bring furs from the great West.
At the levee there were boats from that same region where
the fur came from, but they were palatial and a far cry from
the old exploring days. Some boats like the "Northern Light"
came from where the Indians were said to gather wild rice
and great lumber rafts came from far North on the river.

From the South came still other great vessels, with the
glamour of Uncle Tom and Little Eva about them ; some with
bananas hanging on the boiler decks, at times with long south-
ern moss over them, and piles of pineapples — things that the
lad longed for, but which were at that time a little too rich
for him, as times were hard and they were expensive
because at that time everything had to be brought up from
the South by water. Now owing to the fact that railroads
parallel the river bank on both sides everybody can afford
them.

The Planters House was the center of social gatherings,
and there the young Southerners used to stand at the bar em-
bibing sherry cobblers and mint juleps, talking in that soft
southern dialect that is so pleasant to the ear, or "making
Eome howl at times."

Well, things went along to the taste of the lad. He was
enjoying himself, for he worked on alternate nights in a job
printing office and spent the extra quarters he made at the
St. Louis theatre, seeing Murdock, Booth, Billy Florence, and
all the stars of that time, and the fact that he sat in the "pit"
did not interfere with his enjoyment in the least; and once at
a little ice cream place near the theatre he was sitting at a

table eating ice cream Avhen Wilkes Booth came in and seated
himself opposite him and proceeded to order a plate of ice
cream too. The lad would have given anything to have been
able to have spoken to him, as he Avas his theatrical idol, but
he lacked the nerve. He was the handsomest man the stage
ever had on it, and he looked as kind and gentle as any
man. — What a pity, liis end!

The lad got into society to a certain extent, and was as
fond of singing "Lorena" Ever of Thee" and "Listen to the
Mocking Bird" as anyone, especially with his girl acquain-
tances. At times the man came to collect the rent for the
store and the lad Avas there. He was a medium sized, quiet
man, and rather a poor talker, but used to tell the lad's father
about the Mexican War, and was quite interesting. He was
Mr. Grant of the firm of Boggs and Grant, real estate agents.
His cousin Boggs had taken him into partnership, and Boggs
tended the office and Grant tended to things on the outside,
and afterAvards became General Grant. But the man wbo
most interested the lad was Colonel Bonneville, of the Eegu-
lar Army in command of the Department, and a friend of his
father's who scouted over the plains in the thirties and was
as great an explorer as Fremont, and of Avhom Washington
Irving wrote a volume describing his travels over the vast
unexplored Avest.*

The election of Abraham Lincoln about this time began
to stir things up. ]\Ien argued politics at first peacefully, but
after a Avbile wrathfully. BraAvls became frequent and finally
there came a time when an old mansion in the neighborhood
became head-quarters for the secession element, and a
nondescript flag floated OA'er it. At the order of the GoA'ernor
who was a southern s^onpathizer the uniformed militia com-
panies had marched out and founded Camp Jackson in the
Avestern suburbs ; the purpose of it all being to force Missouri
out of the Union ; and as the lad, noAV a very young man, kneAV
some of the boys out there he used to go out to see tbem in
camp, and as they stood in line at parade rest, on dress pa-
rade, and the command was ''officers front and center" he
envied oA'ery one of them. And men Avere being drilled by the

* Adventures of Capt. Bonneville. U. S. A. in the Rocky Mountains and the
far AVest by AVashlngton Irving'.
2 vols. 12 mo. London, 1837.

lot of southern leaders at a large tobacco ware-house up
Sixth St., and a friend who took him up to see it wanted him
to join; but while his father and he were democrats, they
were not that kind of democrats, but had been for Douglas
and were going to stand by the old flag.

One fine morning his friend, Victor Vogel, now living in
Chicago, got him to go down to the Arsenal to see the troops
there. Victor Avas in a company commanded by his brother-
in-law, Fritz Leser, who was the President of the Turner So-
ciety, and the loyal German captain in the "Crisis,"
Winston Churchill's famous novel, and who was a friend
of the lad and his father. Everywhere overseeing things
was a medium sized red haired man they said was
Captain hjon of the Regulars, and who was later General,
and killed at Wilson's Creek. Preparation was in the air
troops training, German home guards being drilled in every
available space; girls making cartridges as fast as their fin-
gers could fly, and a seriousness that meant business was
evident all over the place.

And then shortly after a band was heard on Morgai?
Street, near his home, and on going to see what was up, he
saw a strong regiment of Home Guards marching west with
Old Glory flapping in the breeze ; and on a street farther south
anotlier regiment was moving in the same direction and still
others, and batteries. They marched out, and following went
the interested young man. They had surrounded the camp
captured it, and he saw his friends, the enemy, marched down
to the Arsenal, prisoners escorted by what everybody in St.
Louis mostly called the "dam Dutch."

Things were getting-, serious, and while some blood had
been shed at Camp Jackson owing to the Home Guards firing
into the crowd, the young man had not been in danger out
there, being safely flattened behind a brick house and out of
range; but the next day, hearing a band, he went out of the
store and saw marching along Walnut Street, three blocks
soutli, a regiment. He could see the glitter of the sunlight
on their bayonets over the heads of the people Avatching them,
and, of course, down he started, but a queer thing happened
about that time, for a white cloud of smoke suddenly envel-
oped the line of people down there, and instantly the sound.

of firing was lioard, and as lie stood looking, strange sounds
filled the air in his immediate neighborhood, and gradually it
dawned on him that a minie rifle could carry three blocks
easily, and that the thing that struck a lamp post near him
was a dreaded minie ball. He was down the basement steps
in short order. On raising his head and looking down where
the firing had come from, he could see a pile of dark forms
across the street lying prostrate. To make things worse,
right across the street a man caught up with another carry-
ing a gun, thinking him a militia man, put a revolver to his
head and killed him. The young man and his father closed
the store and started for home, and you may believe they were
on the alert for it seemed death was in the air.

Well, things after a while seemed to have become better ;
business Avas going on, and ever>i:hing was quiet, so, of course,
when the band sounded a block away on 7th Street, the lure
was too much to be resisted and so aAvay he Avent again, and
was soon on the very front of the crowd of spectators. Ho
was enjoying things immensely, watching the regiment march
b}' — Home Guards who had been out of the city on some order
guarding bridges or something of that kind and were deco-
rated with paper flowers as they passed through the German
part of the city. Happening to look up 7tli Street towards
the rear of the regiment of Home Guards, he saw a puff of
white smoke. Now he had seen tliose puffs before, and so
before the sound reached him, he turned and ran, pushing peo-
ple right and left and Avas in Conway's grocery store at the
corner, and up two flights of stairs in no time. There he
found a room, a door open, and two as badly frightened young
fellows as himself. He rushed in and stayed just long enough
to take one look out of the open window at the regiment of
howling, shouting Germans below, each loading, yelling and
firing like mad men. In the play of the "Crisis" he saw in
later years, lie looked on the same scene again, for one of
those regiments fired at a room in which the southern villian
was firing at them. And even then he about felt his hair raise.
"Well there must be something done, so out into the hall again
he ran where, hanging by his hands, he dropped onto the
roof of a tAvo story building, which was one of four brick
dwellings on Pine Street that ended against the building he

was in, then by the same process onto a one story kitchen, and
then to the ground emerging through a small alley farther
along, -where the first tiling lie saw was his father coming
after him in his shirt sleeves, his face white as his shirt, not
knowing whetlier he woukl find him dead or alive. However,
the firing liad ceased, the regiment gone, and sixty dead and
wounded lay on the ground, and all this had been caused by
one of the troops down the eolunm letting the hammer of his
gun slip while trying to full cock his piece.

Well, one might as v/ell be shot in the ranks as any other
way so as an American regiment was being raised the Ttli en-
rolled Missouri Militia he was soon a member. Singular to re-
late each comj^any had a distinctive uniform. Company "A"
which was supposed to be commanded by the hero of the
"Crisis" wore blue; "B" was a Zouave Company; and "E",
his company, had uniforms that evidently had been captured
from the rebels for the jacket was gray; and so when the
troops turned out, his Company got the most applause because
the Southern sympathizers could applaud this color, and they
did not often get a chance to do that then, for you must know
by this time if a woman wore a red, white and red flower in
her bonnet sbe was liable to be taken to the guard house. But
no one could find fault Avith them giving a glad hand to the
loyal boys with their gray jackets even though everybody
knew their feelings. While in that regiment it devolved on it
to gather in all the men in the city, and they were forced into
an army for its defense. Had the German troops under-
taken that duty, blood would have been shed like water, for
the feeling against them was still strong. The reason for
that was "Pap" Price was near the city.

Two companies mth our young man went up the Mis-
souri Eiver breaking boats, so Pap. Price coi;ldn't get across
the river; and the boat John Warner lay off Lexington, Mo.
all day long with the two companies, the lad being in one of
them, behind hay bales guarding the river front of that town,
while the l)attle of Lone Jack was fought twelve miles back in
the country and Price who had been making for the town was
driven off.

Some duty was being done daih^ and one was at the
Armory almost constantly. Well, one day Mr. Yeatman,

President of the Western Sanitary Commission and the
"Brinsniore" of the "Crisis", asked him when he stopped to
get his father's salary at the sanitary headquarters, if he
wonld lilve to go down and visit his father, the Field Agent
of the Conunission, then at Vieksbnrg, supplying the Army
and Navy with stores from a large boat. He told the captain
he didn't think his mother could spare him, but she thought
she could get along for awhile, so on the hospital boat, ' ' City
of Memphis", returning for more sick and wounded, and
loaded with supplies for his father, he stood on the boiler
deck and watched the smoke of old St. Louis fade in the dis-
tance, and he felt as if he were leaving a city he loved, that
charmed him, and one that, looked at from any side, was full
of interest, and men and Avomen with red blood in their veins,
and had been "held tight" through troublesome times for
Old Glory.

OLD-TIME CAMPAIGNING AND THE STORY OF A
LINCOLN CAMPAIGN SONG.

By Willlvm Hawley Smith.

It was on tlie 8tli of Augaist, in the year 1860,
that a "grand rallj^" of the republican party was held at
Springfield, 111., to ratify the nomination of Abraham Lincoln,
as the party's candidate for the presidency of the United
States. Party spirit ran high, and enthusiasm for what the
party stood for was at a white heat all over the Prairie State.
The result of all this was that great crowds flocked to the state
capital, from every county and town in the entire common-
wealth, not only to show their lojmlty to the party they were
pledged to, but especially to do honor to the man who repre-
sented all they politically hoped for and believed in. I was
but a boy of 15 at the time, yet the events of that occasion wei'e
so emphatic and pronounced that they stamped themselves in-
delibly upon my memory, many of them in great detail, and it
is of some of these and one especially, that I write in what
follows.

Railroads were few and far between in Illinois in those days,
and only a minor part of those who wished to attend the great
meeting could reach the state capital by such means of trans-
portation. But horses were plenty, and there were wagons
galore, esi)ecially farm wagons, in all the region between Chi-
cago and Cairo, and the rural people of the state (and most
of the people of tlie state Avere raral at that time. Chicago
had less than 100,000 inhabitants, and there was not another
city in the state that had a population of 10,000 all told) were
used to traveling in their own conveyances, or on horseback.
It was in the time of the year when prairie roads were at their
best, and so it was that the farmers came by the thousands
to attend the "gTand ratification." Many came two, and some
even three hundred miles in this way, joyfully, gladlj^, to show
their devotion to the cause they represented, the party they

were a part of, and the man they loved. They rode or drove
bj^ day, camped by the roadside at night, their faces always
towards one common point, the state capital, and their hearts
filled with great expectations as to what they should see and
hear Avhen they arrived at their destination. These facts show
something, even at this late day, of the fervor, not to say pas-
sion that animated the spirits of the rank and file of the Ee-
publican party more than half a century ago.

My father was a farmer who owned and cultivated a "sec-
tion" of land, 640 acres, in the southeast corner of Christian
county, about sixty miles from Springfield. He was an "orig-
inal" Lincoln man, was a member of the state convention
which met at Decatur, 111., early in the summer, where Mr.
Lincoln was declared as a "favorite son," and where the plans
were laid, and the machinery was started, which in a large
measure resulted in his nomination a few weeks later at Chi-
cago, and he was also present at the Chicago convention, all
the time from its call to order to its sine die adjournment.
He brought back from Decatur a part of a black-walnut rail
that Mr. Lincoln had split years before, and after his return
from Chicago he could not speak aloud for more than a week.
He had a naturally stentoi-ian voice, which he literally wore
to a frazzle in "rooting," as it would be called nowadays, for
his favorite candidate in the "wigwam" Avhere the convention
was held in the then, as now, "Windy City" on the lake.

Early fall is the very witching time for solving
wheat in Central Illinois, and father had tAvo hundred acres to
sow tliat fall. But that could not keep him from attending
the "grand rally," nor from taking his five hired men with
him to help swell the throng that was to greet the great party
leader. And I was greatly delighted when he told me that he
also wished me to make one of his company that was to attend
the great event. Young as I was I had joined the "Wide
Awakes," the marchers and torch-bearers of the campaign,
and it was as one of these that I went on this pilgrimage to
the state capital. I was also a member of the "Campaign
Glee Club, ' ' but more of that later.

Father fitted up his largest and strongest farm wagon
with a broad platform, or sort of flat deck on top, built over
the frame of a hay rack, a plain surface about eighteen feet

long and six or seven feet wide, fioored with stout oak boards
but without anj' railing around the sides. This was for the
use of the ' ' Glee Club, ' ' some dozen or more young men and
boys, who when not "in action" sat with their feet and legs
dangling over the edge of the deck, riding "sidewise" as the
wagon was driven along. \Vhen they sang they stood up on
the deck-platform with their arms around each other to keep
from falling off as the wagon "joggled" over the uneven
roads. Under the platform, and to be got at through a trap
door Ihat was cut tln'ough the il^ck, there wei"e stored the
"provisions" of the trip, also blankets, torches, oil-cloth uni-
forms, etc. Father furnished four of his best horses to pull
the load, and he drove the outfit most of the time on our four
days' trip coming and going. We boys of the "Glee Club"
sat on the uncushioned planks of that oak-floored deck-plat-
form for those same four days, by day, and most of us slept
under the wagon during the nights we Avere out. And that
was a part of the way we younger fi'y "did our bit" in that
memorable campaign.

No sooner were Ave started on our journey capitalward
than we began to be joined at every cross-road by other pil-
grims bound for the same goal. Indeed we fell into and be
came a part of such a procession-from the very outset. This
procession grew and grew in length as we progressed until
before the second night of our encampment it was more than
seven miles long, and it was made up almost exclusively of
farm wagons and men on horseback. One would see here and
there an "express wagon" with springs under its bed, and
there were a verj- few carriages in all the line. This seven-
mile procession Avas only one of scA'eral similar ones coming
in to a connnon center from all parts of the state.

The second night out Ave camped in a tract of timber,
about throe miles south of S]u-ingfield. We were all up before
daybreak on the folloAving morning, and the last star had not
been put to bed for the day when we started on the "last lap"
of our memorable journey.

It Avas "fiA-e o'clock in the morning" when our Glee Club,.
Avagon and all, arriA-ed at the old state house square, then in
the very center of the city of Springfield. Just as we came
up opposite the front entrance of the capitol building Avho

should come out of its door but the great hero of the day,
Abraham Lincohi himself, tall and gaunt, his high "plug
hat" making him look taller than ever. (I have often wond-
ered how it happened that he was where he was so early in
the morning of that great day.) His unusual height was spe-
cially emphasized as he came out onto the sidewalk by the fact
that ox-Governor Wood, a very short and "stubby" man, was
walking l^eside him. The two together made a very striking
ai:ipearance as they walked along.

My father knew Mr. Lincoln well, and as he was driving-
he was the first of our party to recognize him. He called out
to him, and v.-hen Mr. Lincoln turned and raised his hat in re-
sponse half a dozen or more of the yoimg men on our wagon
jumped to the ground, ran to the sidewalk, picked the tall man
up bodily, and began carrying him along the street on their
stalwart farmer-boy shoulders! (It was in the month of
May, five years later, that I stood in front of the same capitol
building and saw the casket which bore all that vras mortal
of the then martyr president carried out from its front door,
borne on the shoulders of eight stalwart soldiers along the
same sidewalk where our boys so triumphantly carried liini
that morning of which I am writing.)

It was several blocks from the state house to Mr. Lincoln's
home, but once our boys had taken hold they never let up till
they had set their load down on his own doorstep. I have
often thought that it must have been a far more honorable
than it was a comfortable ride for Mr. Lincoln, carried as he
was like a log of Avood on the shoulders of those Avildly-shout-
ing farmer boys.

A part of our campaign outfit brought all the way with
us was a small cast-iron cannon, a gun about three feet long,
with a two-inch bore. It was regularly mounted on a conven-
tional wheel-carriage, in such cases made and provided, and
was drawn by a pair of black ponies. The driver of the pon-
ies and the captain of the cannon gun-squad was an old soldier
of the i\Iexican war. The outfit made quite a telling appear-
ance and the little old gun could make a noise which, as I
remember it, was many times what might be expected from
one of its size.

Our Glee Club wagon kept abreast of our boys who were
carrying Lincoln, and the cannon and its squad were just be-
hind us in the procession. AVe all halted in front of Mr. Lin-
col's home, the cannon was unlimbered and placed squarely
before the gate that led up to the steps where he was stand-
ing, and a salute of thirteen guns was fired in honor of the
day, the occasion, and, above all, of the man whose car-drums
must have been nearly ruptured as he stood leaning against
the door-jam, smiling and laughing, as he constantly shook
hands with the crowds that jammed into the yard in spite of
the cannonade that was going on in front. It was a sight
to remember.

As soon as the salute had been fired the captain of the
squad went up to Mr. Lincoln, and after shaking hands with
him, and receiving thanks for the honor conferred, asked him
if he would name the gun.

Mr. Lincoln laughed most good naturedly, and replied:
"Oh, I never could name anything. Mary had to name all the
children. ' '

The captain was a quick-witted man (or was what he

suggested an inspiration) and he immediately came back with :

' ' AVhy not call the gun ' Mary Lincoln ? ' May we name it so ? "

In i'ei:)ly Mr. Lincoln waved his long right arm, and with

a hearty laugh said: "Yes. Let it go that way."

And so it was that our noisy little old gun was christened
bj' the man in whose honor it had spoken its loudest and best
that early morning now so long ago.

I am glad to add that this same noisy little old gun is
still in the ring, Avell-preserved and Avell-nigh worshipped by
the second and third generation of those who were present
at its bai)tism. It's home is in the little rural town of Rose-
mond, Illinois, in the soutlieast corner of Christian county,
of that state. It bears the name of "Mary Lincoln" engraved
in letters of brass on its own proper person, and once a year
it is almost reverently fired, a single time, "For Auld Lang
Syne."

After tlie tumult of the firing had ceased, and the source
of the groat noise had been duly named and driven away, our
Glee Club filed into the front vard and together we sang the

following song for tlae tall man Avho stood in his own door-
waj^ and listened and laughed and applauded as we .sang.

Our leader was a very good singer, as singers were
counted in those days. He sang with the spirit and under-
standing, in a clear, full voice, and he spoke every word so
that every one within ear-shot could understand everything
he said. He sang the verses of the song and we all joined
in on the chorus.

I never saw the words of this song in print, and I have
no idea who wrote it, but he was a good song-writer Avhoever
he was. I learned the Avords from hearing our leader slug them
again and again, as we sang at one campaign meeting and
another that fall. In this way I "learned by heart" instc^ad of
merel}' "committing to memory" the words of this old song.
Things merely committed to memory very soon get un-com-
mitted. What is learned by heart is rarely, if ever, forgotten.
This is how it comes about that I can now, more than half a
century after I helped sing the chorus of this song in Mr.
Lincoln's dooryard, write out the words without any etfort
to recall them. I merely note this fact in passing.

So here is the song :

AN 1860 CAMPAIGN SONG.

Tune, "Vilkins and Dinah or "Tural-li-a."

There was one Old Abram lived out in the west.

Esteemed by his neighbors the wisest and best ;

And if you will only but follow my ditty,

I'll tell you how he took a walk down to Washington City.

Chorus :

Sing tural, li ural, li ural, li a.

Slug tural, li ural, li ural, li a.

Sing tural, li ural, li ural, li a.
His home Avas in Springfield, out in Illinois,
Where he'd long been the pride of the men and the boys;
But he left his brown house without a sigh of regret,
For he knew that the people had a White one to let.

Chorus :
So Old Abe he trudged on to Washington, straight,
And he entered the Wliite House through the avenue gate ;
Okl Buck and his cronies, some chaps from the south,
Sat around the East Eoom rather down in the mouth.

Chorus :
Old Abe seized the knocker and gave such a thump.
Buck thought the state ship had run into a stump.
He trembled all over, and turned deadly pale,
"That noise" says he, "must have been done with a rail."

Chorus :
"Run Lewis, run Jerry*, and open the door,"
And the functionary nearly fell down on the floor ;
"There is but one man who knocks that wav, I'm blest,
And he is that 'Tarnal Old Abe of the West."

Chorus :
Old Abe, now impatient, did the knocking repeat,
Which made Old Buck jump right up onto his feet;
"I hope it ain't Abe," said Old Buck, pale and gray,
"For if it is, boys, there'll be the devil to pay."

Chorus :
At last, though reluctant. Buck opened the door,
And he found a chap waiting, six feet, three or four;
"I have come, my fine fellows," and Abe spoke to the ring
"To give you fair notice to vacate next spring."

Chorus :
Said Old Buck: "Will you please to walk in Mr. Lincoln,
The remarks yon have made are something to think on ;
I don't care a cuss for the country, that's flat.
But if you can beat Douglas you can take my old hat."

Chorus :
Said Old Abe : "Mr. Buchanan, I've just come here to say
The democratic dog has had his day;
Both parties arc useless, the country don't need 'em,
For one goes for slavery, and 'tother 'gainst fi'eedom."

Chorus :
*Lewis Cass and Jeremiah Black were prominent members
of President Buchanan's cabinet.

Said Old Buck : ' ' Mi*. Lincoln, your notions I think
Are extremely correct, let us all take a drink ;
We've the best of 'J. B. Green Seal' and old sherry,
And I've no objections, just now, to be merry."

Chorus :
Said Old Abe : "As for drinking, please excuse me today,
And jou and your croAvd have it all your o^^ai way ;
The people have trusted you longer 'n they oughter.
And all that I ask is a glass of cold water."

Chorus :
"Cold water!" said Buck, "We have it, I think,
Although with our crowd it's not a favorite drink;
We partake of our tipple on its own native merits,
And we need something stronger to keep up our sperrits."

Chorus :
The cabinet, well frightened, searched the White House with

a will,
But they couldn 't find water put down on the bill ;
Jerry Black made a report, that without any doubt,
The Avhiskey was plenty, but the water played-out.

Chorus :
Of course, without whiskey the meeting was bum,
And they wished, more than ever, that Abe hadn't come;
So when Old Abe saw they had no more to say,
He took up his hat and Avished them ' ' Good day. ' '

Chorus :
So Old Abe he returned to his home in the West,
Leaving Buck and his cabinet greatlj^ depressed ;
And if this part of my tale you'll remember,
I'll tell you the balance next sixth of November,

Chorus :
As for the rest of that memorable day its record is a matter
of histoiy, written in many places. I only add a few words
just here to make tliis particular picture a bit more complete
all by itself. A double procession, many miles in length, and
largely made up of the sort I have already described, marched
and counter marched in front of Mr. Lincoln's house from
earlv morning till well into the afternoon. Then the ranks dis-

banded and went into camp, all round the city, to wait for
the evening performance. Our own party found such a rest-
ing place in the old fair gronnds, just outside the city limits.

I think it was about 5 o'clock in the afternoon when, as
we sat or lounged about, resting up for what was yet to come,
a closed carriage drove into the enclosure, and some one called
out that Mr. Lincoln was inside it. Instantly there was a
rush, the horses were unhitclied from the vehicle, and every-
body who could get near enough to lend a hand helped push
it towards a jDlatform that stood near, which had been built
for speaking purposes later in the day.

As soon as the carriage reached the platform the door
was pulled open and Mr. Lincoln was pulled out and carried
up on to the stage. There he was stood up on his feet, and the
crowd yelled for a speech. He started to say a few words
when the platform on which he was standing began to sway
and to creak, as if about to fall from the over-burden upon it,
and which it had never been built to stand up under. The
situation was critical but Mr. Lincoln was equal to the emer-
gency. Raising his hand high, he said laughingl}% but in a
loud voice : ' ' Get off. Get off. This must be a democratic plat-
form to threaten to go to pieces if a crowd tries to stand on
it! I won't try to stand on it, and I don't want you should
either ! You get off, and so will I ! "

And everybody got off so quickly that the platform did
not fall. In the confusion that followed Mr. Lincoln somehow
escaped and got out of the crowd. The horses were brought
back and hitclied to the empty carriage, later it Avas driven
away. (The fact was that Mr. Lincoln had no intention of
going into the crowd, but a zealous and highly influential po-
litical friend wanted him to see the throng, and induced him
to go out in a closed carriage, with the curtains drawn. But
the secret of his trip somehow leaked out, with the results I
have told.)

That night there was another endless procession, composed
largely of "Wide Awakes" in imifoi-m, bearing torches and
firing Roman candles as they marched along. It was long
after midnight before all was over and the tired thousands
dispersed and went wherever they could. For ourselves we
got our Glee Club wagon into the first open field we came to

3-2

after we left the city, and stretched ourselves under it and
slejDt the sleep of the entirely exhausted.

We were the better part of two days getting home, and
both father and I spoke only in whispers for several days
thereafter. Hired men and all, we set to work on the two
hundred acres of neglected wheat sowing which had waited
for its just dues while we were doing our political duties, such
as fall to the lot of all true patriots in a genuine democracy.
And the acres of wheat w^e sowed that fall brought forth a
bountiful liarvest the next summer. What the political seed
that Avas sowed that fall brought forth is a matter of history
that all the world knows.

LIFE SKETCH OF SAMUEL SEANEY.

By His Gkaxddaughter, Mildred Seaney.

Born in Monroe's administration, October 22, ]824, a
growing youth when Jackson was elected, voting for Wilham
Henry Plarrison, sem'ing on a schoolboard with Governor
French, an earl}' governor of Illinois, he remembered when
Crawford county included Chicago and when the revenue
officer at Palestine, then our county seat, did not go to Chi-
cago to collect the insignificant revenue. He heard a Revolu-
tionary soldier speak in the streets of Palestine, he used to
take liis grain down the Mississippi on the flatboat to Natchez,
and he could point out most any knoll on a country side and
say, "I knocked a turkey gobbler out of a big bur-oak on that
hill about dusk one evening," or "I shot a buck on that p'int
one morning aliout day-break." He was a man who saw the
new order of things replace the old, a man who had taken an
active interest in civic matters of local and national import,
a busy man who took time to play. Born on the farm
where his father settled in 1810, he lived among his third
and fourth generations lilce a tall, sentinel oak that rises above
the younger growtli around it. ^^erily, such men have helped
to make the history of our beautiful county, our proud state,
our great nation, nay, tliey themselves are its history.

And now, at the age of ninety-three years and three
months Samuel Seaney has passed into his needed rest. Uncle
Sam lived to the ripest old age of any member of this long-
lived family. His father, Samuel Seaney, was eighty-six
years old when he died and his grandfather, Owen Seaney,
was about the same age.

Sometime before the Revolution, the Seaneys came from
Wales and settled on the Yadkin River in Surrey County,
Noi'th Carolina. We are not able to trace the family farther
back than the Revolution. We know that Owen Seaney 's
brother was a Revolutionarv soldier. Sometime during the

first years of the 19th century, Owen Seaney and his son, Sam-
uel, crossed the monntains and came into the northwest terri-
tory. This was before Samuel Seaney was married. The family
did not move, however, until 1810, when the old man, Owen
Seaney, with his four sons, Brian, Owen, Samuel and Jake,
and their families, emigrated to a site near Eichmond, Indi-
ana. Samuel Seaney had a wife and several children. His
first ^\^fe's maiden name was Catherine Wish-On. The Wish-
0ns had come from Germany and Avere gun-makers by trade,
settled near tl)e Seaneys in Carolina. Catherine Wish-On was
twelve years old when she came from Germany. The Wish-On
family emigrated to Eolla, Missouri, at about the same time
that the Seaney family moved to Indiana. The younger gen-
erations became wealthy there and, finally, moved to Cali-
fornia. Samuel Seanej- and his wife's brothers were great
bear hunters in Carolina.

We do not know why they left Carolina, where Owen
Seaney owned a large farm and several slaves. All that we
know about the family, is what "Uncle Sam" remembered
of what his parents had told him. He thinks that the reasons
of his people for moAdng were that times were hard along the
Atlantic seaboard after the Revolution and before the War of
1812, and that Avhite labor could not compete with slave
labor. Moreover, they were people who had the pioneer
spirit, and the frontier life called them to the new west.

They took one slave with them because they could not
bear to leave him behind. The negro had grown up with the
boys, and my grandfather remembered that his father said
that he would as soon have seen one of his brothers sold
as the slave. The man's wife lived on an adjoining planta-
tion, and the negro left his wife in order to go to a new coun-
try with his former master. His wife went a two days'
journey with him, and then went back. My grandfather's
mother was very sorry for the wife. The negro married again
in Indiana, where his wife lived to nearly one hundred years.
His descendants bear the name of Seaney.

Owen Seaney bought a large farm near Richmond, and
his sons farmed it. The children of Jake Seaney are business
men in Richmond to-day. The two sons, Samuel and Brian,
decided to move to Illinois. They came to Crawford county

in the summer of 1818, entered government land and put out
crops. Then early in the fall they brought their families to
the new location. Samuel Seaney settled near a spring that
is on the same farm which his son, "Uncle Sam" owned at
his death. Here they built a cabin, around which the wolves
howled and the j^anthers screamed at night. At this place,
Samuel Seaney was bom October 22, 1824. A large family
of children was reared in this house. They married into
pioneer families of Montgomery township. The family was
as follows : Polly, Minta, Lucy, Susah, John, Clarissa, Mar-
garet, Honor, Matilda, Samuel and Nimrod. Polly married
Alex Barrack and died in Texas; Minta married Ben liiggins;
Lucy married Nimrod Gaines and had no children; Susah
married Peter Barrack — Grandpa thinks the family is all
dead; John Seaney 's first wife was an Attaway; he then mar-
ried a Goodlink. Clarissa married Uncle Billy Fuller, the old-
est of the Fuller line; Matilda married old Billy Funk — Al
Funk and Perry Brimberry's wife and Line Funk's father.
Samuel Seaney was the next to the j^oungest child. Nimrod be-
ing the youngest. John Seaney, the elder brother, seems to
have been grandfather's boyish hero. It was he who taught
his brothers, Sam and Nim, to hunt, trap and fish. John was
the baby whom his mother held in her arms all the way from
the Carolinas. A catamount once leaped over the shoulders
of John Seanc}^ at a deer-lick early in the morning. The
animal leaped a little too far, else he might have made a good
meal of the young man.

Samuel Seaney grew up in this pioneer life a happy, in-
dependent youngster. He walked to different schools, all of
which were three or four miles from home. In spite of the fact
that the Blue-backed Speller was their only text book, and
that poor teachers were the rule, he was well versed in the
rudiments of learning. His last teacher was Liberty Murphy
who later o^^^led together with Mr. CasAvell, the "Hutson-
ville Journal" of which Mr. Ethelbert Callahan was editor.
His schoolmates have long since passed away, but Bethel
Martin, Enoch Wesner and Aaron Young lived the longest.

Grandfather told me many times about his early intention
of making my grandmother his wife. Cinderilla Camplain
was a pretty, brown-eyed, auburn-haired neighbor girl and

school mate. Early in their teens he decided that she was the
girl who should keep his log cabin for him. Her father was
Irish by birth and her mother Avas the daughter of Clinton
Cobb, one of the earliest settlers in Montgomery township. She
was the oldest child of a large familj^ and was a capable yomig
woman. The Cobbs were a well-read people, and it was
from them that my grandmother inherited lier love for litera-
ture, a taste which was transmitted into her o'wti family. In
those days of early marriages, when matrimony was not yet
a game of chance, it was not strange that they were married
when she was but eighteen years old. Grandfather was five
years her senior. Before Grandfather was married he worked
for Orville Bristol, who owned a store in Palestine. In this
way, he made some means of setting himself up in housekeep-
ing supi:»lies, crude as they must have been.

In a little clearing among the thick woods, on the Law-
renceville road, a short distance west of her birthplace, Sam-
uel Seaney built a log cabin which was to be the new home.

One day when he v\'as hunting a f cav miles from home, by
mistake, he shot a doe with a young fawn. When he had cut
up the deer, thro^^^l the hind quarters over his horse, and
started home, the little fawn followed him. When he would
stop and look behind, the fawn would crouch down in a furrow
in the road, and start again when he rode on. "\Mien my
grandfather reached home, the little spotted fawn followed
him into the house to the great astonishment and delight of
my dear grandmother.

Those were hard-working days for my grandfather. He
rose early and worked late, mauled rails and cleared off all of
his OAvn farm. He Avas a man of great physical strength and
long endurance. He could cradle more wheat than any man
in the neighborhood.

Breadstuffs were hard to get in those days. Cornbread
and cornpone were eaten largelj^ not because little Avlieat was
raised, but because it was a long trip to a flour mill. There ;
were plenty of corn horse-mills near, but my grandfather had :
to go to the Shaker mill on the Embarrass River for his flour,;
carrAing the wheat on his horse, as horse-back riding Avas the i
sole method of traA'el in those days. Wagons were made by]
local blacksmiths and were A'ery expensive.

Until the advent of the railroad, all the grain my grand-
father raised was either taken to a fiat-boat landing on the
Wabash River or hauled by wagon to Vincennes. He made
several trips on the flat-boat as far as Natchez. During the
Civil War, when wheat was two dollars a bushel, he and his
sons hauled a large wheat crop to Vincennes. He once drove
with a load of sweet potatoes to Chicago. We have always
insisted that the sweet potatoes were a mere pretext to give
him some excuse for seeing the country. His memory of Chi-
cago is that of a small town, the business center of which is
Water Street today. The swamp south of the to^\^l was al-
most impassable. Very few yoimg people in Crawford county
are impressed with the fact that Crawford county once ex-
tended to Chicago. But at the time of my grandfather's trip,
the revenue ofKcer who lived at Palestine, the county seat, did
not go to Chicago to collect the revenue, as it was not suffi-
cient to warrant the long drive.

Marvelous change in a life-time ! He passed through the
gi'eat city a few years ago; it seems almost incredible to be-
lieve that Chicago has grown in one man's lifetime. Grrand-
father remembered when AndrcAv Jackson was President and
he was greatly interested in the campaign that elected
William Henry Harrison; he heard an old Revolutionary
soldier speak in the streets of Palestine Avlien he was
a boy and he served on a school board with Governor
French. Do you, dear reader, wish to know the history of
your county? Then listen to the stories that these few re-
maining pioneers can tell you.

In spite of his busy life, working for his increasing fam-
ily, he always had time for sport. He and his brothers, Nim
and John, often took trips into the Dark Bend of the Em-
barrass, and hunted deer where the tall prairie grass waved
over the present site of Robinson. Often Avhen I have been
driving with him, he has said, "See the p'int of that hill over
there?" or perhaps it was a "holler". "I killed a buck over
there one morning before daybreak." And then would follow
the story. When he wanted to hunt, cold or Avet made no
difference to him. Often he lay in wet buck-skin breeches
all night, with his blanket wrapped about him and awakened

in the morning to find a warm counterpane of snow over liim.
Looking up into the stars he learned hoAv to live a simple life.

Naturally, an old hunter, would admire the Indian fight-
ers. When I was a child, he used to tell us Indian stories of
Lew Wetzel, Kit Carson, and Crawford, and the tears would
stream down our cheeks when he told of Crawford's being
burned at the stake.

When the corn was laid by, he and his sons and friends
used to fish for a week or more on the Wabash, and he often
went down on the River De She below Vincennes. It was on
one of the these fishing parties that Grandpa met Judge Allen,
who was then prosecuting attorney of Sullivan county, and a
friendship grew which lasted all their lives. They were often
together in camjoing parties, where Judge Allen's stories fur-
nished rich entertainment for the party.

Uncle Sam must have his jokes. He has been known to
go sevei'al miles to play a good joke on some one. The neigh-
bor girls remember how he used to go on Sunday evenings and
act as "ugly-man." He did this to help the fellow out — that
the girl might see the contrast between her beau's good looks
and my grandfather's looks. It was his greatest delight to
get a person in a crowd and tell a joke on him, to the chagrin
of the victim and the glee of the perpetrator and his audience.
As long as he lived and until he was old and frail, he retained
this propensity for teasing. We always knew by his peculiar
grin and the twinkle of his eyes when he was getting ready to
tell the joke on us.

This incident illustrates his jokes. Once in Robinson,
Grandfather was on the grand jury as was also L. E. Stephens.
One morning Mr. SteiDhens walked past grandfather with
his pocket book sticking out of his pocket. The men winked
at grandfather and looked signficantly toAvard the purs e.
Grandfather slipped it out of Mr. Stephen 's pocket and trans-
ferred it to his own. At noon the two walked out of the court
house together. "Uncle Sam" told Mr. Stephens, or "Lew"
as he always called him, "that he was a little short of money,
and would he — Mr. Stephens — loan him a five until the next
day.

"Yes, ten if you like," said Mr. Stephens and slapped his
hand to his pocket, but — no purse. Then followed an inter-

esting- hunt through all of his pockets for the pocketbook.
Failing to find it, he put his hand in his vest pocket and drew
out a bill. Now that was not what "Uncle Sam" wanted. He
took Lew's pocketbook out and handed it to him. Mr. Step-
hens vowed retaliation.

On the next day, the grand jury was about to conclude
its procedures, and the foreman asked the jurjTiien if they
knew of am' unfinished business. Then Mr. Stephens arose
with dignity. "Honorable Foreman, I have a grievance to
state. I dislike to mention it, as it reflects on the honor of
this bodj". Gentlemen, I have been robbed right here in our
court house and bj^ one of your members. And gentlemen,
I want justice done!"

The men looked uneasily at each other. Then Grandfather
rose, fully equal to the occasion. "I believe I am guilty of the
charge brought by your fellow juryman. He will not tell you,
however, that he lost any money, and, when I tell you that
I found him in a condition unable to take care of his |)urse,
yoi; will agree with me that out of regard for his family and
himself, it was the best thing that I should keep his pocket-
book until he was able to do so."

' ' If you won 't hear me, that ends it, ' ' said Mr. Stephens,
and slammed the door on the roar of laughter that followed
him.

Samuel Seaney was a member of the Disciple Christian
Church for more than sixty years. He joined the church with
his wife at Palestine, when Joe Wolfe was preaching. They
were members of the East Union church until their deatlis.
He knew the Book thoroughly and was an able expounder of
tlie Scriptures. He used to listen to and participate in the
religious debates that were features of pioneer religious life.
He was a firm believer in apostolic Christianity and the re-
ward of the Saints. He had no fear of death but I think he
was a little tired of life wlien he died. Like the phantom crew
of the ' ' Flying Dutchman, ' ' he begged to go home, home. He
survived his wife sixteen years. He always spoke of her
afterwards as the sweetheart of his youth.

My grandfather was a Democrat in principle all his life,
and was ver\' much interested in politics. A few years ago
in Salem, Illinois, he told Mr. Bryan that his seven sons had

each voted three times for him as President. Mr. Bryan said
that no man had told him such a pleasing thing.

Grandfather became acquainted with most of the able
lawyers of his day, as he served on juries almost continu-
ously for years. He also met nearly all of the old people of
the county, when he was President of the Crawford County
Pioneer Association for a number of years. He attended this
picnic last fall and received the prize for being the oldest man
born in the county.

My grandfather was never really old; his heart was al-
ways young. Many people have asked him to what he at-
tributed his long life. He said he had lived long because he
was always temperate in his habits, that he used tobacco in
no form, and was not addicted to liquor. He also said that
his life of camping out was conducive to long life. He had
one of the most hardy constitutions ; physicians have told him
in recent years that his lungs would outlast another man. He
lived to a good old age because he lived well and took time to
play.

The two old men, with whom I always associate him, are
Aaron Young and Oliver Gogin, the friends of his youth and
old age. That magic artist. Memory, has painted a picture on
my mind. These three old men sit on the porch with the
evening sunlight shining on them through the maple trees.
There they sit telling stories of that past in which they lived.
I see Uncle Aaron with all of his oddities that made us miss
the more his white hair and quaint figure ; Uncle Oliver Gogin,
that courteous, kindly, old gentleman, the gentlest type of an
old-school courtier that I have ever known, with his careful
dress and spry walk, and my grandfather, tall and straight
as an Indian, with his deep voice and interesting conversation.

My grandfather leaves a family of nine living children,
forty-six grandchildren and forty-seven great grandchildren.
His children are Alvin of Lawrence county; Leander of near
Flat Rock; Patrick Henry of Hamilton county; Mrs. Duane
Shaw of Eichwoods; Mrs. A. L. Maxwell of Lawrenceville ;
Herman of Eugene, Oregon; Thomas, deceased; Charles C.
with whom he had lived for many years ; David Bruce of Okal-
ona. Miss., and Andrew Jackson of Portland, Oregon. Miss
him 1 Ah yes, we shall miss him ! The summer will come with

its long" hot days when the farmers haul jiroduce by the house.
He will not be there under the shade to hail them and ask the
prices of their grain. The arm-rocker in which he sat will
stand empty. No white-haired figure in the shade of the
maples, no one to whom we carry a drink, or read the paper
and the new book.

Miss him! Ah yes, neighbors and friends and i^elatives
will miss him, but we are glad for the blessed memories we
may kee]) of him and I, who grew u]) in his companionshiii,
and went squirrel hunting with him — for he could see to knock
a squirrel off a limb until he was eighty; I, who as a child,
sitting on his knee of winter evenings and looking into the
fire-place, heard his stories of Indians and frontier life; I,
who, because of love for him, have a greater regard for beau-
tiful old age, lovingly dedicate these lines to my grandfather
and all other pioneers like him.

Nor am I alone in having a pioneer grandparent. All of
the young people I know have had grandfathers and most
of them had pioneer grandfathers. We are only one of manj'-
other counties of our state whose history should be treasured,
not to provide us a self satisfied feeling of perfection and
pride, but that we may foster their ideals and keep the best
they have given us. All around us are Indian trails, remains
of battle grounds, and spots full of tradition and pioneer lore.
Let us as one of the oldest counties in the state show that we
are proud of our heritage ; let us preserve the priceless stories
of our rich past, that we may build better in the future. Let
us begin to educate our children to that end, let us attend
our pioneer meetings, let us above all cultivate the acquaint-
ance of all beautiful old age. The pioneer dead, let us vener-
ate him ; the pioneer living, let us learn of him.

MY RETROSPECTION OF FOUR SCORE YEARS.

Gaius Paddock.

In the quiet hours that are a part of the solitude of a rural
life come thoughts endeared to my remembrance with pass-
ing of time in the sunset of my life with more of my kin-
dred, friends and acquaintances at rest, than are now living.
The recollections of past events which are largely connected
with j)ersonal associations are not very interesting unless
they are the remembrance of some great events that have
transpired in Governments, which have shaped the destiny of
a Nation or the life and history of the men who have been
prominent in the legislation of the Country's affairs or on
the battlefields with valor. Interesting too, are stories of
those who have achieved successful careers or who have
attained eminence in science with inventions in the varied
fields of research that have benefited the human race, worthy
or unworthj', as they might be. While all historj^ of the past
is largely taken from documents, letters and personal recol-
lections, I have endeavored, as far as possible, not to bring
myself into notice as in any way prominent in the events as
here recorded.

There are very few now living Avho have witnessed the
changes that have taken place or the events that have trans-
pired in my life-time, ha\ang lived in the state near four score
years and I do not thinlv it is possible that a like period
in the future can bring with it the changed condition that
has taken place in the advancement of the country or the
elevation of the human race as viewed by the light of history,
with the march of civilization in the world. From a sparsely
settled wilderness, to a highly developed countrj^ with all
the greatest advancements of the age that are embraced in
science, arts and improvements, with the progress that has
come with the development of its resources and the rise of a
nation which has been ])oni again, with renewed strengtli, with

full faith in tliemselves, after passing through times of great
peril -svith grave solicitude as to the results, surmounting them
all and has come out elevated, cleansed and assumed its
place among the mightiest nations on the earth, having seen
the vast uninhabited prairies and trackless forests, changed
as if b}^ magic, to a country filled with villages and improved
farms and highways, throughout the entire state. From ox-
team transportation and stage-coach travel, to railroads
hauling nearly one hundred cars loaded with the products of
the land, drawn by powerful locomotives and limited passen-
ger trains, carrying hundreds of passengers, at a speed of
sixty miles an hour. From the days of dipped tallow candles,
to a light that rivals the sun in its brightness. From the
log and frame houses, sheltering a fcAV persons therein, to
the steel structures that hold thousands of day and night
occupants, towering to the heighth of nearly three hundred
feet, filled with an active, rushing multitude of inhabitants,
with all the comforts and conveniences, with safety and rapid
elevation. From traveling on the waters of the earth, in
sail and steam vessels, over the seas, lakes and rivers, with
a speed of eight to ten miles an hour, to a more rapid transit
on the surface, to almost like speed beneath its surface, with
safety and comfort. From earth, traveling to the flight of
birds of the air, with a speed of nearly one hundred miles
an hour above the altitude of the highest mountains, carrying
men to far distant points, in the ships of the air loaded with
tons of materials for peace or war. From log school and
frame village houses of instruction, by switch rule, and cow-
hide, to the elegant and classic institution of college learning,
taught by precept, example and honor, with all the appliances
for the reseach of heavenly bodies and things animate and
inanimate, on the earth or beneath the sea. From the ''Hello"
to attract attention near by to the invention that speaks to
us from far distant places, with voices clear and distinct as
near us, and with music that cheers us with melodious sounds
with all the vast and wonderful devices and appliances that
elevate the inhabitants of the earth. To enumerate them
would weary the mind and body. All these to which I have
briefly referred, have been made possible by the discovery of
electricity by Franklin, its application by Morse of the tele-

graph and a further development by Bell of the telephone,
by the inventive genius of Edison, Avho re-echo the words
"let there be light" and it came with the brilliancy of the
sun, and all that came with the daA\aiing, as if by magic ; by
the still further development by the master mind of Marconi
that speaks through unlimited space by the voices of the air.
I cannot find words that will express the gratitude and
a fitting tribute to the skillful surgical and medical science,
which has been made possible by the use of X-rays and the
scientific apparatus that has lengthened the days of thou-
sands, having myself passed through Avhat I thought "was
the shadow of the valley of death" when I awoke, after un-
dergoing a serious operation, which would have been con-
sidered a miracle bj^ many, in times past. And with all this
progress that has come to the uplifting of the human race
that has placed them upon a higher plane of civilization, with
all those achievements that man has wrought, are we any
nearer the Plaven to which our hopes bid us seek at the end
of life here. What progress has been made towards the up-
lifting of the mind? Are we living in a more exalted state,
a more spiritual, that when Christ came upon earth? When
viewed by the acts of cruelty with the horrors that are con-
vulsing the world, with the sacrifice of men, women and chil-
dren, innocent, unoffending God-loving people throughout
Europe and Far East. Surely, it looks like the proclamation
that was given to the world nearly two thousand years ago
"Peace on Earth, good will to men" has failed in its mission,
and the dawning of His second coming, to redeem the world
from sin and misery and bring peace throughout the earth,
looks more distant than ever before in the history of the world.
To recount or further portray the real conditions as they are,
only brings thoughts not pleasant to consider or contemplate,
as the serious things of life fail to interest many of us, who
are so intent with our daily duties and l)usy in the mad
rush for wealth, which requires every effort of strength, with
strenuous application, to reach the goal.

•45

BRIEF RECORD OF THE MEXICAN, CIVIL, SPANISH
WARS AND THE WORLD'S GREAT CONFLICT.

By Gaius Paddock.

I would be unworthy of my heritage of patriotic zeal and
valor if the record of the three wars which took place dur-
ing my life time were not mentioned. These wars were suc-
cessfully fought by the United States forces and do not in-
clude the World's Great War which was declared against
Germany on A]n-il 2, 1917, and which was fought with all the
vigor, and determination to win regardless of cost of life, and
the complex conditions that surround us and with traitors in
our midst, and we unprepared to successfully combat the
armies which had been drilled and prepared for conquest for
nearl}' a half century. By God's help we and our allies won the
War and defeated the world's destroyer of the tranquility of
Nations. i\Iy first remembrance of the Mexican War was when
the troops gathered at Springfield, Illinois in 1846 and their
departure was the grandest sight that had taken place in the
State. How well I recollect this event, as they marched out
in the open prairies south of Springfield with General Hardin
on a white horse and Col. Edward D. Baker on a black horse,
at the head of the troops proceeded by a band of fifes, kettle
and bass drums, a most inspiring sight surely it was, as they
passed for review before the Governor of the State and his
staff and took up their march by land to Alton it being before
the days of railroads. A long line of wagons with camp equi-
page and camp followers brought up the rear. The War was
over before the close of the second year, a complete defeat
of the Mexican Army and a vast domain reaching to tlie Pa-
cific Coast was given the United States, for which we paid the
Mexican Government Fifteen Million Dollars.

The next war was the Civil War, between the North and
South, which continued for four years with great loss of life

and suffering, with intense hatred increasing as it continued,
by both sides. Tlie anxiety, Avith much doubt, as to the re-
sults of the conflict, was felt keenly by both sides, vast de-
struction of property in the Southern States, the returning
of the dead, sick, and wounded, on both sides, to their homes
stirred the hearts of almost every household. I will not at-
tempt to write up this Great Conflict only to state, that the
results of this bloody strife and sacrifice bore fruits of great
blessings in after years to both the North and South conse-
crated with the lives of brave men and cemented with the
blood of the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln. Surely it
looked like the righteousness of the conflict was sealed with
the blood of the combatants and a new nation, was born again
with better understanding of each other; and those who had
fought for its dismemberment were again placed in trusted
])ositions in the Government and they worked in harmony for
the general welfare of the nation in after j'^ears.

The Third War, Spanish-American, Avliich commenced
in April 1898 was of short duration. It was brought about
by a combination of circumstances first, the blowing up of the
Warship Maine at Havana at anchor. The oppression and
crudities perpetrated upon the people of Cuba, by the Spanish
Government, aroused the s;\Tiipatliies of this country in the
interest of humanity. While Ave Avere not prepared for this
conflict, it Avas not long, hoAvever, before the victories of the
United States forces both on land and sea, with the capture
of Manila, destruction of the Spanish NaA^ by Commodore
Dewey and battles on land at San Juan and other places, Avith
complete destruction of the Spanish War fleet brought peace
with glorious results, and the establishment of an Inde-
pendent Nation in Cuba. This disinterested action of the
United States has not its parallel in the histor>^ of the world,
Avlien a conquered country was restored to the oppressed
lil)erated nation, with full freedom to govern the people,
imder restrictions for their safety thereafter.

The Fourth War, the greatest the world has ever known,
is shaking the foundations of most of the nations of the earth.
Again our beloA^ed Country is called upon to defend the cause
of humanity, the Christian religion and the rights of small
nations to exist. Nothing like the horrors of this war

is known in tlie liistory of the world, in its crneltics,
total disregard of life, property and respect of treaties, witli
but one aim, to conquor; with one thought, that "might makes
right". The German Empire, backed with its allies of the
Pagan Turks with whom they have been closely connected for
many years and kindred nations which have imbibed the
habits, thoughts and barbarities of the Asiatic hordes who
are repeating the inhuman atrocities of the darkest ages of
the world's history. Their acts have aroused the entire Ohi-is-
tian Nations of the earth who are striving to uphold the
Governments of civilized people, based upon justice, truth,
and equality.

IS THE SANGAMON RIVER NAVIGABLE?

By Gaius Paddock.

This question, as to the use of Steamboats on this river,
disturbed the public mind very much in Spring-field and vi-
cinity in the years 1847 to 1849. The return of the soldiers
from the Mexican War to their homes in central Illinois,
many of whom lived in the counties that bordered the Sanga-
mon, and who were favorably impressed Avith the idea that it
was; as they had had the opportunity with much pleasure, of
traveling on steaml:)oats. The merchants and traders on the
river and towns near by, strongly favored the enterprise, as
they were cut off from obtaining supplies for many months
during the year and felt the need of transportation facilities.
Railroading had proved a failure to a certain extent.
The one built from Meredosia on the Illinois river via Jack-
sonville to Springfield, with steam engine power to haul cars
carrying passengers or freight had been abandoned. Mule
power was being tried, Avith but little better success, as the
road bed with ' ' ties and sleepers ' ' which were of wood pieces
6" X 8" pinned to the cross ties by Avooden pins 15" long by
lYi" thick Avith strap iron 3" x Yi" thick, Avould often take a
notion to curl up and come through the car bottoms, disturb-
ing the passengers, damaging the cars and freight and often
ditching the train. Transportation Avas in a much disturbed
condition and some immediate remedy must be found. Lin-
coln, Avho was alAvays foremost in enterprises and AA^ho, in
early years had flat-boated, contended that it Avas not only
possible but practicable to deA'eiop and successfully haA^e
steamboat naA'igation on the Sangamon, to the Illinois RiA^er
and connection Avith the Mississippi. For quite a number of
eA^enings, for seA'^eral weeks I listened to the discussions in
the store of Col. John Williams, in which I Avas a summer
clerk at that time. The stores Avere all opened from six in the
morning until nine at night, sometimes later, when interest-

ing subjects were being discussed. Little or no business was
transacted in the evenings, the stores being a rendezvous
for loafers. While there was a wide difference of
opinion as to the practicability, it nevertheless af-
forded an opportunity for a "close examination by
discussion" of the very impoi'tant matter of water
communication which would benefit the entire community and
Springfield especially. There were many wise and good de-
baters, who ridiculed and opposed the scheme as foolish, as
a means for any relief or improvement at the present. Lin-
coln generally had the best of the discussion in the arguments
but he had some hard headed opponents to combat or con-
vince. I remember at the close of a rather exciting debate that
Lincoln said, "Gentlemen: we have wasted time and talked
ourselves hoarse on this subject. I will demonstrate by act-
ual exhibit, in a few days that it is both possible and practi-
cable and will show you my model of a steamboat, that will
navigate the Sangamon in successful operation, in the big
water trough at the corner opposite my office, having had
experience as a navigator on the Sangamon many times and
also on the Illinois and Mississippi." In about a week or ten
days after this announcement, at the close of one of the ev-
ening meetings, he said that at two o'clock the next day he
would make a practical test. And sure enough, he was
jirompt as to the time. Quite a crowd had gathered as the
vrord had been passed around the streets. He appeared with
his four foot model under his arm and approaching the
trough, which had been pumped full and announced 'now is
the time to witness the successful navigation by "model of
the Sangamon' and other rivers that have bars and shoal
l)laces." He proceeded to put his model boat afloat in the
water and placing a few bricks upon it until it sank to the
first deck, he then applied the air pumps modeled like the old
fire bellows, four in number, two on each side that were be-
neath the lower or first deck and in a few moments it slowly
rose above the water about six inches, Lincoln remai-king that
each inch represented a foot, on a good sized steam boat. This
novel invention siTrely demonstrated it was possible to have
water communication on the Sangamon. There were yet some
doubters, as to its practicability for actual transportation.

The crowd listened to Lincoln 's defence of liis invention, gave
three cheers and dispersed, much impressed but not fully con-
vinced. He retired with his model under his arm, remarking if
they had any more questions to ask, they could do so and
answer them or not, as he had no further information to give.
I am inclined to think he never after attempted to exhibit or
refer to his device or apply his great genius to inventions
of any kmd, as the master mind of Lincoln was filled with in-
tense thoughts of more grave importance. [Mr. Lincoln ob-
tained a United States patent for a device for lifting ves-
sels over shoals. May 22, 1849.] His political idol had
been shattered when the great Whig party, of which the
most noted statesman of the time, Daniel Webster,
in his speech, at Boston, on his return from Wash-
ington, said the "Whig part}^ is dead." This announcement
went deep into the hearts of the people who had supported a
party based upon justice and equality and were now suffer-
ing the effects of "Loeofoco" government that had come into
power after the death of William Henry Harrison and the
Yice-President John Tyler had turned traitor to the party,
which caused all of the cabinet to resign, except Daniel Web-
ster, who remained in the cabinet to perfect the Ashburnham
Treat}^ which gave us that vast domain knoAvn as the Great
Northwest. Political conditions were in a chaotic state. Tyler
and his party, on the resignation of the Harrison Cabinet, had
appointed all the extreme Southern leaders, such as John C.
Calhoun, the nullifier, and his associates. The prophetic vi-
sion of Lincoln gave him much anxiety and when he spoke,
they all took heed of his statements, although he was then
unknown in name or fame, but enjoyed the confidence and es-
teem of all with whom he came in contact within this State.

"WILDER 'S BRIGADE MONUMENT DEDICATION."

[The Imposing Ceremony Took Place on Chickamauga Battle-
field, September 20, 1899.]

[From the Chattanooga Daily News, September 20, 1899.]

Clear and crisp broke the morning and a perfect day fol-
lowed to bless the ceremonies of the dedication of the Wilder
Brigade monument and the 113 monuments and markers of
the state of Indiana, which was formally done today at the
site of the Wilder monument in Chickamauga Park.

In round figures it is estimated that 10,000 people at-
tended the exercises.

Those from Chattanooga, including the visiting members
of the Wilder Brigade and the veterans from Ohio, Indiana
and Illinois, went to the park principally by way of the Chat-
tanooga, Rome and Southern railroad, over which a special
schedule for trains had been arranged; many others went in
private vehicles, and on bicycles, and it was stated at 10 o 'clock
that every livery rig in the city was engaged.

Following the dedication of the Indiana monuments, the-
Wilder Brigade tower was dedicated. Tliis tower represents
an expenditure of $18,000 by the members of the Wilder Bri-
gade, and it is the most imposing and massive monument on
the national battlefield.

In connection with these exercises it is appropriate to ob-
serve that the speech of Col. Tomlinson Fort of Chattanooga,
was the first ever delivered by a Confederate veteran on Chick-
amauga battlefield at the dedication of a monument to Union
soldiers of the civil war.* Colonel Fort consented to deliver
the address at the personal request of General Wilder.

• Gen. John M. Palmer made an address at the dedication of the monu-
ment on Snodgrass Hill, Chickamauga Park, on September 19, 1895, repre-
senting the Union army and Gen. John B. Gordon spoke on the same occa-
sion representing the confederate army.

GENEBAL WILDEK's SPEECH.

Mr. Cliairman, Ladies and Grentlemen : I have the honor
to say that these gray-headed men before you were the gallant
young men of 36 years ago, who on this bloody battlefield bared
their breasts to the storms of civil war, and on this spot met
the brave men of Longstreet's Legions, and here broke the
great charge that had driven the splendid men of Sheridan in
<?onfusion to the rear. In this place they were so fortunate
as to break that magnificent line of battle and send the men
of Longstreet's left back three-quarters of a mile and saved
the men of McCook 's gallant corps from further pursuit. Here
in the i:)resence of many who wore the gray on that fateful day,
we can tell the truthful story of how Wilder 's Brigade did
their whole duty ; of how they held Alexander 's bridge on the
18th, and kept Walker's corps from executing their purpose of
throwing themselves across the LaFayette road in the rear
of Rosecrans and between his army and Chattanooga. We
can here tell how these gallant men held the cross roads at
Hall's all night of the 18th in spite of the brave attempts of
Bushrod Johnson to seize the LaFayette road at Viniard's.
But we held them off until Gen. George H. Thomas came with
his grand old 14th corps on the morning of the 19th and took
position on the Chattanooga road to defend the move on Chat-
tanooga. We can here say that the gallant Hood and Bushrod
Johnson were repulsed by this brigade at Viniard's, when they
had broken Sheridan 's division, and how after they had broken
the splendid attack of Davis ' division this brigade struck them
in flank and compelled them to seek refuge in the woods east
of Viniard's. We can also say that when Van Cleve's division
crossed the LaFayette road on that direful afternoon and
were hurled back in confusion, we poured a fire in their flank
so hot that even the splendid veterans of Hood were forced to
yield the ground and return in hot haste to the cover of the
woods. We can also say that when the gallant men of Mc-
Law's division came charging at our lines across the Viniard
field, the men of this brigade met them with such a withering
fire that they, too, were forced to give way and return to the
woods from whence they came.

This command, composed of the 17th Indiana infantry,
Maj. William T. Jones commanding; the 72d Indiana infantry,
Col. A. 0. ]\Iiller commanding; the 92d Illinois infantry, Col.
Smith D. Atkins commanding ; the 98th Illinois infantry, Col.
J. J. Funkhauser commanding; the 123d Illinois infantry, Col.
James Monroe commanding; and the 18th Indiana battery,
Capt. Eli Lilly commanding; all the infantry armed with
Spencer repeating magazine rifles and aggregating about two
thousand men in line, proved to the world that they could face
the splendid veterans of Bragg 's anny; that they could suc-
cessfully withstand Longstreet's Legions; that they trembled
not when attacked by overwhelming force and all supports
gone. They proved their manhood by driving their attack
with iri'esistible power and recovering the ground that even
Sheridan had yielded to the bravest enemy that had ever
fought on the bloodiest battlefields of Tennessee and Vir-
ginia.

This monument to their steadfast patriotism, their un-
yielding courage, was built by contributions from the gallant
men who composed the brigade. It stands on the spot where
General Rosecrans' headquarters were on the 19th and fore-
noon of the 20th. It is erected in no vain-glorious mood. It
marks the line where the bravest of brave Americans met in
headlong coufliet, each determined to win, and where the best
armament proved successful. On this grand battlefield thou-
sands died in defense of those principles that they had been
trained to believe in, and which they thoroughly believed were
right; where else on God's earth could such a conflict be car-
ried to a close and find such results'? These men were hon-
orable Americans and when the war was fought to a finish all
agreed to live in peace, and have honestly kept their compact.
No other people have done this in good faith. I thank God
that I have lived to see the sons of these heroes from both
sides join in the ranks of our country's defenders, and imder
one common flag march to the tunes of "Dixie" and "Star
Spangled Banner" with the same patriotic, springy ste^o, the
same patriotic impulse that impelled you men when you be-
lieved your duty was to follow and fight for the flags that
waved over the proud hosts which joined battle on this bloody
field. I am as proud of the memory of those who died under

one flag as I am of those who fell under the other; both be-
lieved they were right ; both died for the right as they saw it.
We who fought for the stars and stripes give the hand of
friendly fellowship to those who fought for the stars and bars.
The sons of both sides have proved their readiness to march
shoulder to shoulder to any part of the world where their com-
mon country calls and prove that their chief pride is in show
ing how the sons of the men of the great civil war can best imi-
tate the actions of their fathers. To you, General Boynton,
I have the honor of turning over the custody of this monument
as the representative of our great country. May it stand for
ages to show the coming generations how their ancestors
fought for their principles. It stands as a moniiment to the
valor of those who fought on both sides. May its lessons be
learned by all our descendants.

GENERAL SMITH D. ATKINS ' SPEECH.

Comrades of Wilder 's Brigade: This magnificent monu-
ment erected here on one of the most noted battlefields of
the great Civil War — one of the bloodiest confiicts of ancient
or modern times — is not only a monument to your intrepid
skill and courage as soldiers, but is especially a monument to
your beloved Commander, General John T. Wilder, the most
distinguished volunteer of the American army. I know of
other distinguished volunteer soldiers, Logan, Oglesby, and
Palmer, of my 0A\m state — Miles and others, who reached much
higher rank than Wilder ; but I know of none who left his mark
more distinctly upon his country's history, or accomplished
more. One private volunteer soldier, John C. Lee, of the 96th
Illinois Volunteers, belonging to the Brigade of Infantry I
commanded before my regiment was assigned to Wilder 's Bri-
gade, will rank close to Wilder in inventive genius when the
truthful history of the great war is written — it was John C.
Lee, a private soldier, detailed for ser^'ice in the pontoon train,
who invented the light, easily transported wood frame covered
with canvas, for a pontoon boat, that we found so serviceable
in crossing rivers, and that has since been adopted by every
army in the world. But Wilder invented a new style of fight-
ing, and revolutionized the cavalry tactics, not only of the
United States army, but of all the armies of the world.

He used his horses, as you so "well know, to trans-
port his troops rapidly to the point of engagement, and fought
his men in single line on foot. That had never been done be-
fore, and in order to do it he invented his own tactics, and
drilled his troops by the same commands on foot and on horse-
back, and every army of every civilized country in the world
has ado]ited the tactics that Wilder invented. This is high
praise, but you know that Wilder deserves it. As brave as
the bravest, with brains and common sense, he pioneered the
way that all the cavalry of the world is following. Like pri-
vate John C. Lee, he saw what it was necessary to do, and he
invented the waj^ to do it, and all the armies of the world have
adopted the way that Wilder invented.

The regiment that I commanded, the 92nd Illinois Infan-
try Volunteers, was detached from General Gordon Grang-
er's Reserve Corps by the order of General Rosecrans at my
request supplemented by the request of General Wilder, and
joined Wilder 's Brigade at Duck River, Tennessee, and were
given 140 Spencer Repeating Rifles, all the surplus arms of
the Brigade. With the Brigade the regiment marched on Sun
day, August 16th, 1863, in a hea\^ thunder storm and climbed
the mountain East of Dechard to University Place, and cross-
ing the mountains with light skirmishing camped at Poe's
Taveni in the Tennessee Valley, North of Chattanooga, on the
21st of August.

The main army of the Cumberland had marched to Stev-
enson, Alabama, and crossing the Tennessee at Bridgeport
and Caperton's Ferry had swung off through the mountain
gorges to the West and South of Chattanooga, the Confed-
erate stronghold.

Wilder 's Brigade of Mounted Infantry, Minty's Brigade
of Cavalry, and Wagner's Brigade of Infantry, had crossed
the Cumberland Range into the Tennessee Valley, north of
Chattanooga, with orders to demonstrate strongly as if con-
templating a crossing of the Tennessee north of Cliattanooga.
On August 24th, the 92nd, with two pieces of artillery belong-
ing to Lilly's battery of Wilder 's Brigade, marched to Har-
rison's Landing and shelled the enemy on the opposite side
of the river. Planting the two guns on the bluff the Lieutenant
was ordered to fire, and when complaint was made that he was

slow, he said that he knew by an instrument that he carried
just how many feet the Confederate fort was below his posi-
tion, and if a man would stand up on the parapet of the Con-
federate fort he could tell by another instrument just how
many yards it was away — soon a Confederate soldier stood
up on the parapet of the fort, and the Lieutenant of artillery
sighted him through his instrument, and while he was figur-
ing out the distance, cutting his shells and loading his rifled
cannon, I took position in front of and below the guns so I
might watch the effect of the shots with my field glass — but I
Avas enveloi^ed in smoke, and could see nothing.

A few days afterward we obtained a copy of the Chatta-
nooga Daily Rebel that contained an article stating that the
first shot from the Federal artillery at Harrison's Landing
had dismounted one of the three pieces of artillery in the Con-
federate fort. Lilly's gunners, when they knew the distance
and elevation, could hit the mark the first shot two miles away,
for they were as skilled as the "Americans behind the guns"^
with Dewey in Manila Bay.

September 4th, the 92nd reported to General Wilder
north of Chattanooga, and found that it had been ordered to
report to General Thomas for scouting and courier duty. The
regiment, with two brass mountain howitzers, immediately re-
turned over the mountains and crossed the Tennessee at
Bridgeport, and reported to General Eosecrans in Trenton
Vallejf on the 8th at 10 a. m., and at 1 p. m. fift}' men from the
regiment armed with Spencer Rifles, under Lieut. Col. Van
Buskiik, climbed Lookout Mountain on the West side by an
unused cattle path, and puslied the Confederate cavalry off
from Lookout Mountain, in plain sight of Chattanooga, and at
10 p. m. reported the certain evacuation of Chattanooga by
Bragg. General Rosecrans gave me Avritten orders that night
to take the advance into Chattanooga in the morning, and
marching at 3 a. m., of September 9th, 1863, the regiment
pushed the Confederate Cavalry off from the Mountain on the
wagon road above the railroad. When on the Mountain, Lil-
ly's Battery began shelling the 92nd from Moccasin Point —
to be fired into by the artillery of our own Brigade was em-
embarassing, but we soon communicated by signal with Lilly,
who quit firing, and we pushed the enemy over and down the-

Mountain, and entered Chattanooga, as early as 10 a. m., the
colors of tlie 92nd being the first to wave over the evacuated
city. I gathered such information as I could, and at 11 a. m.,
wrote and sent by courier the following note :
Head Quarters 92nd 111. Vol.
Chattanooga, 11 a. m., Sept. 9th, 186,3.
Major: —

We liad a little skirmishing on the mountain, but now we
hold Chattanooga— my stand of colors was the first to float
over the town — a complete evacuation — columns of dust
showed them going Soutli — two companies of my regiment are
pressing after them, and I will likely take my command up the
river to gobble a little squad said to be there.
Most Eespectfully,

Smith D. Atkins,
Mi\j. Levering Col. 92nd III.

At 10 a. m., September 10th, 1863, Chattanooga was com-
pletely evacuated by the rear guard of Bragg 's aiToy, and
was completely in possession of the Union soldiers. I was
of the opinion at that time, and I have never changed that
opinion, that General Eosecrans could have concentrated his
entire army in Chattanooga before dark of September 10th,
1863, with tlie exception of McCook's cavalry — and McCook's
command, without the loss of a man or a wheel, by returning
West of Lookout Mountain and going down the Trenton Val-
ley, could have been in Chattanooga on September 11th, and
the battle of Chickamauga have been completely avoided.
Chattanooga was the object of the entire campaign, and by
tlie magnificent maneuvering of his army General Eosecrans
had compelled Bragg to evacuate the city, and he was in full
possession of it in the forenoon of September the 9th, and
could have put his entire army in that city without the loss
of a man or a gun within 48 hours of that time. Why he did
not do so I never could xmderstand. He had not yet destroyed
Bragg 's army, but he had completely gained the sole object
of the campaign without a battle, and the battle of Chicka-
mauga was a useless sacrifice of life without object or purpose.
Had he concentrated his army immediately in Chattanooga
there would have been no battle of Chickamauga, and Eose-

orans would not have lost his command. Up to that time Kose-
craus had outgeneraled Bragg, and from that time Bragg out-
generaled Rosecrans.

At 1 o'clock p. m., of September 9th, the 92nd Illinois was
ordered bj* General Crittenden then in Chattanooga up the
Tennessee River a few miles to assist Wilder and Minty in
crossing; but before the regiment reached there, they were
fording the river and needed no assistance.

General Wilder ordered the 92nd to join his Brigade, and
next evening it camped with the Brigade at Grej^ville, on the
road to Ringgold. During the night I received orders to
report with the regiment to General Rosecrans at LaFayette,
and was on the march before daylight, and a mile north of
Tiinggold struck Forrests's Cavalry in force — sending word to
General Wilder — the regiment dismounted and repulsed an
assault of Forrest in line of regiments, when Wilder came xip
with a section of Lilly's battery and opened on the enemy — •
instantly our shots were answered with artillery, but no shot
came near us — we afterward learned that it was Van Cleve's
Division that approached Ringgold from the West, while we
came from the North, and had Van Cleve known our position
he could have cut off a large part of Forrest's Cavalry be-
fore it could have passed out through Ringgold Gap. Push-
ing into Ringgold a company was sent out toward LaFayette
that struck the enemy's cavalry in force less than two miles
from Ringgold, and confident that we could not reach LaFay-
ette by that road, with the consent of General Wilder, the
regiment started for Rossville. A few miles out on our left
toward Chickamauga River we saw a column of the enemy
preparing to charge on a Union wagon train that was going
into camp ; but a few shots from our mountain howitzers and
Spencers just as it began the charge turned the enemy's col-
umn back, and we continued our march to Rossville arriving
after dark.

Anticipating that General Rosecrans was at that time in
Chattanooga instead of LaFayette, two officers were sent
there before daylight on September 12th, but the officers not
returning, at 9 a. ni., the regiment took the road to LaFayette
finding no enemy until we reached Gordon's Mill on the Chick-
amauga, where there were many of the enemy's cavalry that

made but slight resistance* and retreated southward over the
river ; stopping in a corn field away from the road, the horses
were fed, and nose-bags filled with corn for another feed, when,
moving to the LaFayette road to resume the march south-
ward I received an order from Greneral Rosecrans at Chatta-
nooga to send my regiment to the foot of Lookout Mountain
at the Sununertown road, and report for orders to him in Chat-
tanooga, which I did, and was ordered to open communication
with General Thomas somewhere on Lookout Mountain, and
marching all night we found Thomas before daylight, and by
6 a. m., September 13th, had returned Avord to General Rose-
crans that his dispatches to General Thomas had been deliv-
ered on Lookout Mountain at Steven's Gap, and a Courier
line established from there to Chattanooga. At 9 a. m. the
regiment moved to the foot of Steven's Gap and went into
Camp; on the 14th moved to Pond Spring and camped; on
the 15 th went to Crawfish Spring to open communication with
General Crittenden, finding all roads and paths over the Chick-
amauga heavil}- picketed by the enemy's cavalry, and the
woods full of spies, pretending to be deserters, that by the
strange orders of General Rosecrans we were not permitted to
molest. "We remained at Pond Spring on the 16th sending out
scouting parties in all directions, except south of the Chicka-
mauga. On the 16th, was engaged Avith General Turchin's
Brigade at Catlet's Gap, losing three men. On the 18th re-
mained at Pond Spring, sending out scouting parties. On the
19th of September the regiment moved at daylight with the
infantry columns toward Chattanooga.

Heavy firing at our right and front was heard soon after
daylight. At 10 a. m. by command of General Rosecrans went
into line in the field south of Widow Glen's house, where Gen-
eral Rosecrans made his headquarters, and sent a dismounted
skirmish line into the woods toward LaFayette road, and
captured a Confederate soldier, who said that he belonged to
Longstreet's corps from the army of Virginia, and the pris-
oner was taken to General Rosecrans' headquarters. At 11
a. m. was ordered further on the road to Chattanooga, and be-
tween 12 and 1 o'clock, dismounted on the west side of and
near the LaFayette road by order of General Rejmolds, and
the eight companies of the regiment, two being on Courier

duty, endeavored to stop the enemy wlio had repulsed King's
Brigade, which the regiment succeeded in doing in its immed-
iate front, but the long line of the enemy swept by its right
flank and the regiment was withdrawn, with a loss of twenty-
six killed and wounded.

Being left upon the field without orders, many of our
troops retreating toward Chattanooga, men were sent to find
Wilder 's Brigade, which Avas found near Viniards, west of
LaFayette road, and moving around the enemy that had
broken through the Union lines, the regiment joined Wilder 's
Brigade late in the afternoon, and went into line dismounted
on his left.

All night long in the woods in our front the axes of the
enemy rang out clear and loud. I could not then understand
whj^ there was so much chopping of timber, but I have since,
in comjDany with General H. V. Boynton, visited the ground in
our front occupied by the enemy, where they were building
breastworks of timber, the ground being too rocky to throw
up earthworks, in evident fear of an assault by Rosecrans in
the morning. I was then of the opinion, and am now, that
had Eosecrans possessed at Chickamauga the cool, calculating,
bulldog courage he exhibited at Stone River, and boldly as-
saulted the enemy's lines on the morning of September 20th,
he would have pushed Bragg 's army across the Chickamauga
and remained victor upon the field. He made the fatal error
of withdrawing his lines and a^vaiting the Confederate assault.
The 92nd Illinois regiment, before daylight on the morning of
the 20th was spread out mounted to cover the entire line of
Wilder 's Brigade front, the Brigade having withdrawn to the
right of McCook corps far in the rear. Not long after sun-
rise, a heavy column of the enemy in column of regiments
doubled on the center, moving very slowly, making not a sound,
no mounted officers with them, was observed passing out left
flank. It was said to be Longstreet's corps. Word was re-
peatedly sent to McCook, who testily denied the truthfulness
of the information sent him, and foolishly refused to send out
a skirmish line of his OA\ai by which he might have learned the
truth. Hours passed by, and then that quiet, creeping column
of Confederates sprang upon the left of McCook 's corps with

a yell, and with irresistible force, and, although McCook had
been early and often informed of the approach of that column
of the enemy, it was a complete surprise to him, and in less
than ten minutes liis left was irretrievably lost, and the amazed
and astonislicd General looked on helplesslj', his magnificent
corps broken into fragments and floating off from the battle-
field in detachments and sc^uads like flecks of foam upon a
river. I have read of a useless and sullen retreat of a por-
tion of the English army in the Crimean war described by
Henry J. Raymond; I saw, at Shiloh, while serving as Assist-
ant Adjutant General of the 4th Division of the Army of the
Tennessee, whole regiments of other divisions marching sul-
lenly to the rear without firing a shot at the enemy; but I
never read of, and never saw, so foolish and senseless a re-
treat as was made by McCook 's corps, not from cowai'dice,
but solely from the incompetence of the corps Commander.
As soon as the Confederates assaulted McCook 's corps the
enemy in our front advanced in force, and powerless to make
resistance with a thin line of mounted troops, we withdrew
and joined Wilder 's Brigade in the rear. There I met General
Wilder the Brigade Commander, on the ridge deserted by
McCook, where we could both see the long column of Con-
federate regiments doubled on the center, and he instantly
conceived the bold idea of charging with his Brigade through
the center of the Confederate column, taking their regiments
in flank, and pusliing for Tliomas on the left. He did me the
honor to ask my opinion, and I replied that it was a desperate
and bold movement, but his Brigade of Spencer Eepeating
Rifles could do it, and with most of his Brigade he could join
Thomas, and might entirely change the result of the battle.
He told me that he would form his Brigade in a hollow square,
two regiments in front line with opening for Lilly's Battery,
one regiment in column on each flank, and my regiment in line
in rear of the battery, and I was about to go to my regiment
just beyond the l)row of the hill to bring it up to make that
formation, when Hon. Charles A. Dana, Assistant Secretaiy
of War rode up, saying that all was lost, and when General
Wilder explained to him wliat he intended doing, Mr. Dana
positively ordered General Wilder not to make the attempt^

but to withdraw with his Command to Chattanooga on the
Dry Valley road. Wilder lingered on the leld with his Com-
mand, gathering up McCook's abandoned artillery and prob-
ably a hundred ambulances of our woianded, and near night-
fall retired to Chattanooga, the 92nd Illinois regiment cover-
ing the rear, followed by Forrest's Cavalrj^, lightly skirmish-
ing with the rear gaiard.

Here was fought one of the most fiercely contested bat-
tles in history, that ought not to have been fought at all, with-
out object and without result, save the renewed demonstration
of the valor of American soldiery, equal here in the Union
and Confederate armies. They were all Americans.

That Wilder's famous Brigade of Mounted Infantry was
composed of troops as brave and as intelligent as any, I am
willing to contend ; that they were braver and more intelligent
than all others, I am not willing to assert. The phenomenal
victories they achieved I attribute, of course, in an important
degree, to the skill of their Commander, to their intelligence
and bravery ; but supplemental to that, they were armed with
Spencer Eepeating Eifles, the most effective and complete
weapon for actual service ever placed in the hands of soldiers.
Had the Americans who met them upon so many battlefields
been armed in precisely the same manner, the losses in Wil-
der's Brigade would have been many times multiplied.

Here we see, what so far as I know, may not be seen upon
any battlefield outside of the great Eepublic, beautiful monu-
ments precisely alike erected by the government to commemo-
rate the soldierly qualities of all general officers, those who
fought for the government, and those who fought against the
government. Here Kentucky has erected a beautiful monu-
ment commemorating jointly the heroism of her sons who
fought against, and who fought for, the starry banner of the
Eepublic.

"Fondly do we hope, earnestly do we pray," that it is
typical of a people as firmly imited as the particles of the
granite monuments here commemorating the soldierly quali-
ties of Americans North and South, and that never again will
any American fire upon the American flag.

Here this massive monument commemorating the sol-
dierly qualities of Wilder's Brigade, shall "greet the morning

sunlight, and kiss the last rays of the setting sun", while "the
earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls a wave, ' ' and all the world
shall know that "government of the people, by the people^
and for the j^eople shall not perish from the earth."

A MATTOON PIONEER.

Capt. Joseph Withington — Civilian, Soldier and Statesman.
By Adolf Sumeelin.

Without making any pretentions to greatness or claims
for marked distinction in the affairs of life, yet the story of
Capt. Joseph Withington 's existence among us mortals has
much out of the ordinary. It is a genuine pleasure when he
can be induced to unlock the store of memory and relate in-
teresting events of the distant past.

Captain Withington, the last of the hardy old pioneers
who settled along the hanks of Whitley creek in Moultrie
county, was born in Newbury, Mass., his ancestors being Eng-
lish of the Puritanical stock. After having completed his
academical course he came Avest long before Horace Greeley
had given tbat advice to j^oung men, and engaged in the mer-
cantile business in the store of his uncle, Ebenezer Noyes, at
Essex, a village platted by Mr. Noyes in 1840. In later years
it was knoA\ai as the Zion Frost Farm, and is now o^med by
J. Hortenstine & Son.

It was in 1849 tbat he made his first appearance on Whit-
ley Creek and among his friends and customers of some sev-
enty odd years ago were Thomas T. Townley, Philip Arman-
trout, William Christie, Grandfather Apple, Rufus Pierce
and many other noble frontiersmen who have passed away.

The Village of Nelson situated on the banks of the OkaAV
expected to become the county seat of Moultrie county and so
firmly was the belief fixed in the minds of the inhabitants of
Nelson township that the court house was about half com-
pleted when the vote was taken which resulted in Sullivan
being chosen, much to the disappointment of the public spir-
ited citizens of that toA\aiship. While these events were tak-
ing place along the banks of the Kaskaskia, Mattoon was not
even dreamed of and the ground whereon this city rests was
waving fields of grass used for grazing purposes and inhab-

ited l)y wolves, deor and rattlesnakes, and the numerous lakes
and ponds surrounding the elevated site in the fall and spring
■were covered with the wild fowls of the air when resting from
their long tights hotween the north and the south. This sec-
tion was rendered uninhabitable on account of the chills and
fever, the mosquito and the giant horsefly, the early settlers
having located along the banks of creeks, rivers and on ele-
vated ground were in a measure exempt from these annoy-
ances.

Captain AVithington continued in business in Essex until
1853 when he went to St. Louis and accepted a position as
clerk in a mercantile establishment, where he remained for
three years.

In 1855. after it had been definitely settled that the cross-
ings of the Illinois Central and the old Terre Haute & Alton
Railroads would be where they are now located, he paid the
new tovra site a visit, making a portion of the trip from St.
Louis by stage, going via Moweaqua and Sullivan. The future
for Mattoon was attractive and after returning to St. Louis
and remaining about a year he bade that city farewell and
opened a paint, oil and glass store in the village of Mattoon
starting in Inisiness where the great Hulman wholesale house
is now situated.

Since that time, sixty-four years ago, this city has been
his home and here he has constantly been with the exception
of two years in Cincinnati, two years in Charleston, and four
years as a soldier in the army fighting for the preservation of
the Union.

The first number of the Mattoon Gazette Avas issued in
March, 1856, as an advertising sheet or rather a boom edition.
Rufus W. Houghton was the publisher and some four weeks
were required in its publication. Captain Withington was one
of the compositors. Mr. Houghton having taught him the
boxes and how to assemble the type in a stick. He was an apt
apprentice and rendered much assistance in getting out the
first number of the first paper ever printed in Mattoon.

The idea of becoming a printer was probably influenced
by his father, Leonard Withington, who learned the art of
printing in Boston ; he was a graduate of Yale and was a He-
brew scholar. He was also a writer of considerable note for

newspapers and magazines, but at a later date became a Con-
gregational minister and for over fifty years served one con-
gregation at Newbury, Mass., as its minister. He died at the
advanced age of ninety-seven, and bis maiden sister, Eliza-
beth Withington, passed away at the ripe old age of 101.

In 1857 Captain Witbington aided the engineers in plat-
ting Noyes ' addition to tbe city of Mattoon and in 1858 be as-
sisted Mr. Noyes in setting out a large number of shade trees
in the southwest portion of the city.

During his long residence in Mattoon the Captain has
filled the positions of county surveyor, supervisor, police mag-
istrate and mayor. Contrary to the usual custom he was
never an aspirant for any political position and these offices
came to him unsolicited. His political affiliations have been
with tbe Eepublican party since its organization.

In February 1883 the Mattoon Building and Loan Asso-
ciation was chartered and it was the first association of its
kind in Mattoon. Captain Withington was chosen its first sec-
retary and filled that position for twenty-three years. He is
now treasurer of Mattoon Lodge No. 260 A, F. & A. M., Mat-
toon Chapter No. 85 R. A. M. and Godfrey de Boulion Com-
mandery No. 44 K. T. and is a charter member of Elect Lady
Chapter No. 40 0. E. S.

It was in 1867 when he first commenced keeping the
weather records, and in 1874, having succeeded "William Doz-
ier, deceased, he made regular reports to the government un-
til 1913, covering a period of forty years, when he resigned.
He is well supplied with meteorological instruments which in-
sure accuracy to his calculations and yet while he makes no
report to the government his records are as complete up to
tbe present as when be did so, and those who desire are at
liberty to consult them at any time. His barometer foretold
the great cyclone of May 1917 that laid waste the northern
portions of Mattoon and Charleston.

For many years tbe historic old Essex House was his
home but during recent years the captain has had his office,
library and sleeping apartments over 171214 Broadway, but
he was forced to move in Nov. 1916, owing to the excavation
for the Illinois Central subway weakening the foundation of
tbe building and he obtained comfortable accommodations

in the Harris building, over 1408 Broadway. His rooms
present cheerful and pleasant surroundings and home like
comforts. In his library of some seven hundred volumes are
many ancient, rare and valuable books, among them an illus-
trated leaflet printed in London over one hundred years ago.
In his collection are Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian
and German lexicons, and side by side is a large illustrated
edition of the Holy Bible and Webster's Unabridged Diction-
ary, fit companions for one possessing a mind delving into
the deepest I'esearches. He also has a large collection of
charts, maps, i^amphlets, reports and also his account books
of 1849-53, which will prove valuable to future historians.

The walls of his bachelor sitting room are decorated with
portraits, engravings, silhouettes, mementoes, heirlooms and
keepsakes which are both interesting and instructive. Among
them is a steel engraving of his father, made by Sartain in
the early forties, and was among the last steel plates made
by that eminent artist ; an oil painting of Dr. Nathan Noyes,
his maternal grandfather ; two paintings by the late Mrs. Hat-
tie B. Cunningham; a photogra\aire, "Mon Ancient Regi-
ment;" a portrait of Abraham Lincoln; a silhouette of Ad-
miral Schley, a certificate of the Illinois Masonic Veterans^
association dated October 29, 1913 ; and many other pictures
and ornaments of more or less note. In his collection of cur-
ios are:

A Chinese sword with a scabbard made of Chinese coins..

A Turkish shield inlaid with gold and silver.

A ship barometer over one hundred years old.

A sextant for taking the altitude of heavenly bodies.

An aneroid and mercurial barometer for ascertaining
atmospheric pressure.

A hand seal used by his grandfather. It is over a cen-
tury old.

A Cuban machette used during the Spanish-American
war.

A copper wanning pan formerly owned by his grand-
father.

Two silver plated candle sticks and snuffers that have
passed the century mark.

Candlestick, snuffers and dish about 100 vears old.

Brass postal scales in use some fifty-five years ago.

A Japanese cabinet having seven apartments.

And among the minor curios are a wax figure of the moon,
toy pipes, Japanese magic doll, the "Holy Book" which
proves itself; many small tools and numerous articles which
are associated with the distant past.

CAPTAIN WITHINGTON 'S ARMY RECCED.

The following record of the army life of Captain Joseph
"Withington was compiled by H. W. Kellog, historian, from
the official and authentic sources as kept by the Army and
Navy association of the United States and is dated February
6, 1902, and is number 41,190:

"This certifies that Joseph Withington enlisted from
Coles County, April 19, 18G1, at Camp Douglas, Springfield,
111., as sergeant in Capt. James Monroe's Company B, Sev-
enth Regiment, Illinois, Volunteer Infantry, Colonel John
Cook, commander. The regiment was chiefly engaged in
guard dut}'' in the states of Missouri and Illinois.

"Received an honorable discharge at Mound City, 111.,
Julj^ 25, 1861, on account of expiration of service.

"Ee-enlisted at Mattoon, 111., July 30, 1861 to serve for
three years, or during the war, and was mustered into service
at Decatur, 111., August 5, 1861, as first sergeant in Captain
Edmund True's Company D, Forty-first Regiment, Illinois
Volunteer Infantry. Colonel Isaac C. Pugh commanding.

"On August 8 regiment moved to St. Louis, Mo.; thence
to Bird's Point, Mo., and was assigned to the command of
General U. S. Grant to assist in fortifying Paducah, Ky. It
w^as afterward assigned to the Second brigade. Second divi-
sion of the Sixteenth army corps, Army of the Tennessee;
later to the Seventeenth Corps, Major General James B. Mc-
Pherson commanding, and during its service participated in
the following engagements :

"Fort Henry, Fort Douelson, Pittsburg Landing,
Tcnn., Shiloh, siege of Corinth, Hatehie River, Matamora,
Hernando, siege of Vicksburg and Jackson, Miss. ; Red River
expedition, including Sabine Cross Roads, Pleasant Hills,
Cane River or Monetis Bluff, Cloutiersville, Marksville and
JVEansura, La.; Gantown, Miss.; Kenesaw Mountain, siege of

Atlanta, Love joy Station, march to the sea, siege of Savan-
nah, Ga., and a number of minor affairs. For nearly one year
he was adjutant general of liis brigade being the 1st Brig.,
4th Div., 17th Army Corps.

"On January 4, 1865, the regiment was consolidated with
the Fifty-third Illinois, and was aftenvard engaged at Or-
angeburg and Cheraw, S. C. ; Fayetteville and Bentonville,
N. C, and also present at the surrender of Johnston's army
to General Sherman at Bennett House in Raleigh, N. C.

"The said Joseph Withington was with his command up
to the Red River expedition and at all times performed faith-
ful and meritorious service, for which he was promoted to the
rank of First Lieutenant, Company D, and captain of his com-
pany to date from July 12, 1862.

"He was slightly wounded by a spent hall at the battle
of Fort Donelson, Tenn.

"He received an honorable discharge at Springfield, 111.,
September 12, 1864, on expiration of term of service.

"His brother, Nathan N., served in the Eleventh Regi-
ment, Massachusetts Infantry, and his brother Richard served
in the Seventeenth Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry; their
father's name Leonard Withington; mother's maiden name
Caroline Noyes, grandfather, Joseph Withington, served in
the Revolutionary war.

"The said Joseph Withington was born in Essex county,
Mass., May 4, 1834.

"He is a member of Mattoon Post No. 404, Department
of Illinois, Grand Army of the Republic and has filled most of
the minor offices."

The certificate further states : He is a member of the A.
F. & A. M. and Knights Templar; he has been presiding offi-
cer in all the Masonic orders and has held many of the minor
offices in the Benevolent Order of Elks.

Although Captain Withington is approaching his eighty-
sixth birthday he enjoys companionship with the same degree
of relish that he did when a young man carving his fortune
in the wilds of the west. In a quiet way he has been a great
philanthropist and has brought cheer and encouragement to
many an aching and discouraged heart ; ever warm in his ties
of friendship and forgiving where he has been unjustly

wronged. In his daily walks lie has about him a halo of cheer
that is always pleasant and assuring and ever ready to grant
an accommodation whenever it is possible to do so. He has
been and still is a great reader and student and his mind is a
store-house of knowledge, his literary taste ha^^ng a wide
range in history, poetry, religion, mathematics and science.
He takes pardonable dehght in relating reminiscences per-
taining to the early days of this section of Illinois and also
in giving his experiences as a soldier faithfully follo^^•ing the
flag of his country. His head is now white, his step a little
tottery, but his eyes are bright, his mind is clear and he
stands in Mattoon, "the Queen of the Prairies," like the giant
oak of the forest that has survived the storms of many win-
ters.

.71

PIKE COUNTY SETTLED 1820; 100 YEARS AGO.

By Jesse M. Thompson.

Doubtless it has occurred to few persons that the present
year marks an important centennial in the history of Pike
county. Just one hundred years ago this year the first white
settlements were made within the present borders of Pike.
Just one hundred years ago this summer Christian civilization
first blazed its way to this then wilderness country. Just a
century ago the woodman's axe rang for the first time in our
virgin forests to shape the rude accommodations for the
log home of a christian family. Just a century ago came
Ebenezer Franklin and Daniel Shinn and the sons of Micah
Eoss, seeking homes in the far valley of the Mississippi.

True, these men of 1820 were not the first white men to
set foot within what is now Pike county. The first white
men who came to this region were possibly Father Marquette,
LaSalle, Joliet, Tonty, Iberville and others who, as history
records, made frequent trips up and down our border rivers
in the seventeenth century. French and half-breed traders,
trappers and coureur-des-bois occasionally crossed our beauti-
ful prairies and camped in the edge of our woodlands, but
none lingered long within our Ijorders. At night they pitched
their tents and surrounded only by the wilderness with its
denizens and roving red men, they rested their weary bodies
until day-break and then passed on. The first to pause within
the present limits of Pike county was a French Canadian trap-
per and hunter by the name of Jacques Tibault (recorded in
the early history of the county as J. B. Teboe.) This half-I)reed
is knowni to have occupied a I'ude hut near the Illinois river on
Avhat is now section 33, Flint township, as early as 1817. Ti-
bault however can hardly lay claim to the title of "first set-
tler" in as much as he had no family, tilled no land and made
no permanent abode. He was a half-wild creature and lived
by his rifle and his traps. Tibault was killed at Milton in 1844.

The first bona-fide white settler in Pike county was Ebeue-
zer Franklin who came in March, 1820, bringing with him his
wife, son and three daughters and a man by the name of Israel
Waters. Franklin stopped first at a point about one-half mile
east of the present site of Atlas and up Jockey Hollow. Neigh-
borhoods were counties in those days and so far as known
Franklin's nearest neighbors who had any white blood in their
veins were the half-breed, Tibault, on the Illinois river, and a
man who had been living in what is now Calhoun county since
about 1801 and who is believed to have been the first man to so-
journ within the Military Tract. This man lived in a cave dug
out by himself about a quarter of a mile from the Mississippi
river and he remained secluded and unkno^ATi after the first
pioneers came. His name and story are shrouded with im-
l^enetrable mystery.

Franklin had neither the tools nor the help to build a cabin
for himself and family, so he was forced to pitch a tent and
here his family suffered terribly from the chill winds of early
spring. The following May, assisted by a new-comer, Daniel
Shinn, Franklin built himself a log cabin on the southeast
quarter of section 22, about three quarters of a mile from
the present Atlas and about 150 yards north of where the road
has since run. Franklin cut the first tree and with Shinn built
the first log house in Pike county. Franklin at a later period
lived for a time a short distance south of Pittsfield and still
later on what was known as Franklin's Prairie, near Milton.
He died at Milton in 1878.

In April, 1820, a month after the coming of Franklin, came
Daniel Shimi and his wife, Mary, and their seven children.
They were natives of New Jersey but came here from Ohio.
They brought with them the first wagon ever seen in Pike
county. And now for the first time in the Pike county wilder-
ness is heard the song and laughter of women and in the
rude clearings the voices of little children at play. Mr. Shinn
took up from the government 160 acres of wild land on what
is now section 12, Atlas township, and here, working turn-
about with his neighbor, Franklin, he built a log house for
his family. He at once set about improving his wilderness
home, hewing rails from the forest trees and fencing some
of his acres, plowing with his oxen and wooden mouldboard

plow the fii'st field ever broken in the countj^, and planting
the first crop of Indian corn.

Mr. Shinn became a leader in the early histoiy and de-
velopment of the connty, assisted in building the first log
coiirthonse and jail in Atlas, helped lay out the road from
Pittsfield to Atlas, and raised the first hogs and sheep known
in the county. Wolves that roamed the wilds in large bands
and made the nights hideous with their bowlings, devoured
200 of his pigs before he hit upon the expedient of shutting
his hogs in a log stable for protection. Mr. Shinn became the
o^\^ler of 700 acres of Pike county land at one time and reared
a family of thirteen children. This grand old pioneer died
while visiting a daughter in Pittsfield in March, 1852, his wife
having passed away about 1846.

The first community settlement in Pike county was
founded in the late summer or early fall of 1820 (just about
100 years ago) when four sons of Micah Ross, of
Pil;tsfield, Mass., and a few other families arrived after months
of tedious travel and thrilling adventure at what is now the
site of Atlas and charmed by the beauty and evident fertility
of these wide-stretching prairies they here pitched camp and
began the erection of the first log settlement in the county.
The little party had set out from Massachusetts in early sum-
mer and reaching the headwaters of the Allegheny river they
had procured flatboats and rafts and placing their families,
horses and wagons thereon, they began to work their Avay
down the river which was at such a low stage that the boats
frequently ran fast aground and the men of the party had to
wade out and pry them off the mud banks with stout poles.
After 14 days of terrible exertion they reached Pittsburg
and there embarked upon the broad Ohio which carried them
without mishap for nearly 900 miles to Shawneetown, 111.,
where, after a several weeks' journey, they disembarked and
started overland with teams and wagons in a north-westerly
direction across Illinois towards their destination near the-
Mississippi river.

At length, after days of Aveary travel, our adventurers
reached Upper Alton, there was at that time but one house
in what is now the city of Alton and this was occupied by an
old Indian fighter by the name of Major Hunter. Leaving^

the women and children in the party at Upper Alton, the men
pressed on into the wilderness, making use of old Indian trails
and ancient buffalo paths. At the mouth of the Illinois river
they came upon an Indian camp, where they procured canoes.
They then crossed the bluff and proceeded to the Mississippi
Bottom, at the point where Gilead (in Calhoun county) is noAV
situated, then continued up the bottom, marking the trees as
they went, for there were no roads and nothing to guide them
save an occasional Indian trail, and after a hard and toilsome
march they came, "at last" (whence, according to one tradi-
tion, the name "Atlas"), to that pleasing and inviting location
that they had so long pictured in their mind's eye. Charmed
by this favored locality, our pioneers at once set about con-
structing a camp to shelter them while they prepared quarters
for their families. No time was lost in building up four
primitive log cabins as the nucleus for the new settlement and
all being in readiness the men returned to Upper Alton for
their families and shortly afterwards took permanent pos-
session of their wilderness homes.

Among these first-comers of 1820 were several whose
names are imperishable in Pike county annals. They were
Col. William Boss, Clarendon Eoss, Capt. Leonard Ross,
Henry J. Eoss, Samuel Davis, William Sprague and Joseph
Cogswell, and their families. Davis was a famous bee-hunter
of earl}^ days and built for his large family a cabin on section
16, Atlas. All except Cogswell and his family (who were from
Berkshire, Mass.) hailed from Pittsfield, Mass. Leonard Eoss
had been a captain in the war of 1812. Colonel William Eoss
gained his title at a later date when he was appointed Colonel
of Illinois militia. His is perhaps the most noted name in the
early history of the countj^ He had much to do with shaping
the county's policies in early days, both politically and econ-
omically. He built the first brick house in the county at Atlas
in 1821. He built the first mill in the county (a two-story atfair
with a capacity of a peck to a half bushel of corn per hour)
in 1822, and erected the first storebuilding in the county at
Atlas in 1826, and the first band grist mill at the same place
in the same year. The first church in the county was organ-
ized in his home prior to 1830. It was Congregational, long
since replaced by a more stately edifice. He, with James M.

Seeley, raised the first wheat in the county, which was also
the first ground in the county and made into biscuits, the
flour being bolted through book muslin. The first Masonic
lodge in the county was held upstairs at his home in Atlas
between 1830 and 1834. He addressed the first political meet-
ing known in the county which was held in Montezuma town-
ship in 1834 (he at the time being a candidate for the state
legislature), and he was the first State Senator elected from
the County of Pike. In 1833, when it became evident that the
county seat must be moved from Atlas to a more central point
in the county. Colonel Ross advanced the money to the C(iunty
authorities with which to enter the land on which Pittsfield
now stands, and in consideration thereof he was accorded the
privilege of naming the new town, which he did, naming it in
honor of his j\lassachusetts home, and so indirectly in honor
of William Pitt, the "Great Commoner" and friend of Amer-
ica in the years preceding our national birth.

Colonel Ross lost his wife, one of his brothers and numer-
ous others of his company in the great pestilential sickness
which fell upon the new community at Atlas in the first year.
He later visited New York, married a Miss Edna Adams and
returned to his settlement where there had already been es-
tablished a postoffice called Ross Settlement. Colonel Ross
changed the name to Atlas, althougli some in the settlement
held out for the name "Charlotte", in honor of a woman
member of the pioneer party. The Colonel participated in
the famous Black Hawk campaign of 1832, he having had much
military training in the war of 1812, where, wnth his brother.
Captain Leonard, he led a detachment of about 100 men in
the memorable battle of Sackett's Harbor (in which 500 Amer-
icans drove back 1,300 British soldiers), one-third of the de-
tachment couimanded by the Rosses being killed or wounded
in the conflict. Colonel Ross was for many years judge of
probate for the county of Pike and also served as clerk of
the circuit court. He was the intimate friend of Abraham
Lincohi, Gen. John M. Palmer, 0. II. Browning, Richard
Yates, AVentworth, Lovejoy and Richard J. Oglesby. He spent
his later years in Pittsfield, where he established the first bank
in the county about 1854 or 1855, which was known as the
Banking House of William Ross & Company, the company

being Marshall Ayers.of Jacksonville. The famous pioneer
died in Pittsfield on May 31, 1873, at the age of 81, and is
buried in the Pittsfield West Cemetery, on the road leading to
the first Pike county settlement which he founded in 1820.

Spare indeed are the authentic records of our earliest set-
tlers. A few facts however have been preserved by the elder
chroniclers and here and there in out-of-the-way places still
linger a few traditions of the early settlement. It is known
that that first year and the few succeeding ones at Atlas were
bitter years. As Will Carleton says in his story of the First
Settler, "It ain't the funniest thing a man can do, existing
in a country when its new," Nature had moved in a good
many centuries before our settlers and was running things
pretty much her OAvn style and she did not propose to sur-
render without a struggle her ancient, solitary reign. She
greeted the new-comers with her miasmas and malarias, her
swamp fevers and ague thrills, lier wolves and catamounts and
rattlesnakes ; she sent her chill winjter winds whistling through
their rude cabins and then she scorched them with several
weeks of quiet fire. In a thousand ways she suggested to her
unbidden guests that they had best pack up and hustle back
East. But our settlers were a hardy race. They hadn't
started on a circular tour. And when at last Dame Nature
understood that they had come to stay she changed from a
snarl to a purr, from mother-in-law to mother as it were, and
took them into full partnership, \delding lavishly of her stores
and the fruits of her marvelously fertile soils. Thus tri-
umphed the indomitable spirit of our pioneers.

Let us for a little while go back a hundred years in our
history to that first settlement at Atlas. Let us strip our
fertile fields of their improvements, count the automobile and
telephone the illusions of a disordered mind, restore our de-
pleted groves to their ancient wealth of trees, banish all signs
of a thrifty population, call back the creatures of the wild
and the roving red men — in short, set the wilderness stage of
that distant day, a century ago, when Pike county was a-born-
ing.

The four log houses comprising the original settlement
are soon surrounded by others. Other settlers arrived in the
footsteps of the Posses, among them two more Rosses, John

and Jeremiah. About this time came James M. Seelej^, father
of Dr. Seeley of the old Pittsiield mercantile firm of Seeley
& Lloyd. Others arriving soon after Avere Rufus Brown, who
established a tavern at Atlas, and Chas. McGiffin and Levi
Newman, who located opposite Louisiana on a slough once
known as IMcGiffin's slough. James McDonald, Avife and four
daughters arrived at this time from Washington county, New
York, and settled on an island in the Sni, where he established
a ferry. He was later found murdered at his ferry. In the
first year of the settlement came also John Wood (who in
1822 founded the city of Quincy) and Willard Keyes. These
two men located on section 16, just below New Canton, and
kept bachelor's hall on the bank of a creek that was substan-
tially named Keyes Creek after the name of one of the men.
Wood and Keyes brought with them a few hogs, two yoke of
oxen, and a small iron plow, tlie first in the county. Wood
became governor of Illinois in 1860-61. Keyes carried water
from a salt spring in Pleasant Vale township a mile and a
half to his home, where he boiled it down and made salt for
the early settlers.

One day Wood, accompanied by Colonel Ross and Capt.
Leonard Ross, sheriff of the county, was riding horseback
through the wilderness that is now Adams county but which
was then in Pike. Suddenly' Wood paused and bidding the
Rosses to follow him he told them he would lead them to the
spot where he was going to build a city. They followed him
through the wild underbrush for about a mile from the beaten
trail and at last they came out upon the sjDot where Quincy
now stands. The three pioneers gazed enraptured at the
beauty of the scene, at the marvelous handiwork of nature
yet unmarred l)y the hand of man, at the mighty Father of
Waters that rolled below them. With high enthusiasm, young
Wood pointed out the various merits of the location and told
them that here he had decided to build this city. Colonel
Ross believing that a great future awaited his own town of
Atlas, listened attentively, and finally turning to the young
man he congratulated him on his choice of location and wished
him well. "But," said Colonel Ross, addressing himself to
the future State Governor and founder of the "Gem City", "I

have little faith in the success of your city because it is too
close to Atlas."

Meanwhile, news of the settlers at Atlas reaches the state
legislators in session at Vandalia, then the capital of the state.
Late in 1820 the legislature began to consider the question of
laying out a new county for the benefit of the new-comers.
Accordingly, an act to form a new county out of the bounty
lands of the state was framed and passed by the legislature
and this act was formally approved by the state body on Jan-
uary 31, 1824. This new county was named Pike county in
honor of General Zebulon M. Pike, western explorer, soldier of
the war of 1812, and discoverer of Pike's Peak. The Pike
county thus formed was not limited to its present borders.
More than fifty counties have been created from the original
Pike. The Pike county of a hundred years ago embraced all
of that part of the state of Illinois between the Mississippi
and Illuiois rivers from their junction 25 miles above St. Louis
northward to the Wisconsin line and eastward to Lake Mich-
igan, and included what are now known as the cities of Cbi-
cago, Peoria, Quiney, Eock Island and Galena. At the first
election held in this vast territory in 1821, there were but 35
votes polled, including those of the French at Chicago. The
seat of justice for this far-reaching territory was established
at Coles' Grove, near the present site of Gilead in Calhoun
county. A "Gazetteer of Illinois and Wisconsin",* published
about 1822, says of the county as it was then. "Pike county
will no doubt be divided into several counties ; some of which
will become very wealthy and important. It is probable that
the section about Fort Clark (now Peoria) will be the most
thickly settled. Pike county contains between 700 and 800 in-
habitants. The county seat is Coles' Grove, a post town. Very
little improvement has yet been made in this place or vicinity.
The situation is high and healthy and bids fair to become a
place of some importance." Thus the historian of near a cen-
tury ago speaks of Pike county as it was in its original magni-
tude and wildnoss. The historian as yet had no vision of
the great metropolis that was destined to arise in the north-
east section of the countv on Lake Michigan. In this same

* Gazetteer of Illinois and Missouri. By Lewis C. Becli, published Albany
1823.

Gazetteer of 1822, Chicago is spoken of as "a village of Pike
county, containing 12 or 15 houses and about 60 or 70 in-
habitants." Fort Dearborn (the present site of Chicago) had
been founded in 1804 but it was so far in the wilderness that
news of the Indian massacre of the garrison in 1812 was sev-
eral weeks reaching the nearest white settlements.

That first year at Atlas was marked by a terrible sickness
that swept away half of the eai'ly community. Up from the
decaying vegetation of the newly-plowed prairies and the
rotting fish in the dried-up ponds, came the fatal miasmatic
plague. Day after day the death angel flapped his wing over
the new settlement. At last, barely a home remained that
death had not entered. The nearest doctor was at Louisiana
and the trail was a bitter one. In puncheons of basswood,
hollowed out, the bodies of the dead were placed and thus
rudely encofifined they were consigned to the ground in a bury-
ing-spot near Franklin's first location and about 400 yards
from Shinn's. No stone or head-board marks the spot nor is
there anj^ outward sign that the dead are there, yet there for
a centuiy has reposed the dust of 80 men, women and children
of the first settlement who were carried away by the memor-
able plague.

Our settlers seldom wanted for meat. The streams
teemed with myriads of fish of many species and on the
prairies and in the woodlands Avere prairie chicken, grouse,
partridge, snipe, wild pigeons, plover, and wild turkeys and
in the migratory seasons the ponds and streams swarmed with
countless water-fowl, many of them with names no longer
knoA\Ti to himtors, among them tlie Great Northern Diver or
loon, the rough-billed pelican, the wood duck, the big black-
headed duck, the ring-necked duck, the red-head, the canvas-
back, the dipper, the shell-drake or goosander, the fish duck,
the red-breasted and the hooded merganser, the mallard and
the pin-tail, the green-winged and the blue-winged teal, the
spoonbill and the gadwall, the baldpate, the American swan,
the trumpeter swan and the white-fronted goose. What a
paradise for the hunter was the Pike county of those days!

While our settlers usually had meat in abundance, there
was oftentimes a lack of other provisions such as salt, flour
and coffee. Once, when larders were running low, Franklin

and Shinn, the first settlers, started to Louisiana for provi-
sions. Reaching the river they signalled the ferryman on the
other side. A fog hung over the river and the wind was off
the Missouri shore. The ferrjinan could neither see nor hear
their signals. The need was imperative, so the two men
plunged in boldly with their clothes on and started to swim
for the Louisiana side. All went well until Shinn w^as seized
with a cramp. Franklin succeeded in pounding him out of
his cramp but both men were so exhausted that they had to
doff their clothes in mid-stream. They finally reached the
Missouri shore a short distance below the to^\ai, but minus
their clothes. They made their Avants known however and
were soon provided vrith clothing from the home of a settler
and went on into the town and got their much-needed provi-
sions.

The virgin soil yielded bountiful crops of wheat and
corn but our settlers were often put to it to get their grain
transformed into flour or meal. The nearest horse-mill was
at the present site of Gilead in Calhoun county and thither our
settlers carried their grain on horse-back to have it ground.
This mill was run by one John ShaAv, knowai in the early polit-
ical history of Pike county as the "Black Prince." He was
the most poAverful and dominating figure in Pike county in
the days Avhen Chicago was a Pike county village. He was
Coimty Commissioner and sat in the State Legislature at
Vandalia. He cast the deciding vote at the session of 1824 for
calling a convention to amend the state constitution and make
Illinois a slave state. The convention measure was defeated
at the polls by 1800 majority and the state was thus kept anti-
slave. Thus it Avill be seen how near Pike county in 1824
came to involving the great state of Illinois in the evils of
slavery. Shaw was influential among the French and half-
breeds and controlled their votes. For years in the early
history of the county he controlled the election. He is said
to have forged deeds and other public documents by the quire
and to have forged and padded poll books for his own pur-
poses. It Avas years before the home-builders in this new re-
gion became strong enough to band together and overthrow
the political regime of the Black Prince.

Justice was swift and sure in the early community. The
first crime on record in the county was tlie theft of a gun from
a settler named Hume by a man named Franklin (not Ebenez-
er). Franlvlin in making his escape had the misfortune to
lose the gun while swimming McGee creek in the north part
of the county. lie was captured, was taken before Colonel
Ross at Atlas, given a summary trial, convicted and sentenced
to 25 lashes on tlie bare back. He took his punishment, endur-
ing it with noble fortitude as we are told by the early his-
torian, and was then released. He soon committed another
crime, was caught and locked up but escaped from his rude
jail and took king's leave of the county. The pioneers how-
ever were relentless. They trailed him to Fort Edwards
(now Warsaw), Illinois, took him into custody and brought
him back to Atlas. The jail at Atlas however was no place to
confine so clever a criminal, so Colonel Ross decided to send
him to jail at Edwardsville for safe-keeping. Accordingly,
the prisoner was placed in charge of Constable Farr and John
"Wood (before mentioned) and the journey to Edwards-
ville began. The prisoner was lashed to the back of a mule,
his feet being tied together beneath the mule's body. En-
route thej^ came to a swollen stream. Franklin saw his oppor-
tunity. Jabbing his heels into the mule's flanks, he plunged
into the raging stream, ignoring the commands of his escort
and shouting back to them as the water surged over his head.
With gibes upon his lips he and the mule went to their death
beneath the foaming current. Franklin 's body was recovered
and buried on the bank of the stream and years later his bones
were disinterred and the skeleton wired together by Doctor
Vandeventer and turned over to his family at Versailles.

Gi'eat prairie fires that swept the Mississippi bottoms in
the fall of the year often menaced the habitations of our set-
tlers. The vast prairies were covered with grass that grew to
an enormous height, often to the top of a man's head on horse-
back, and was so heavy and thick that when the settlers
wanted to reach some point off the used trail they hitched a
team to a large bush or tree and dragged it through the grass
to mash it do^^^l, to make a road to pass over. In the fall of
the year this luxuriant growth of grass would be set on fire
by the Indians or hunters, and especially when the wind was

liigli, would sweep resistlessly over the prairies, the flames
leaping to a prodigious height and advancing 50 and 100 feet
at a bound, forming a spectacle, especially at night, that was
at once magnificent and terrifying. Our settlers early learned
to guard against these destructive conflagrations by plowing
"fire guards" around their homes and whenever an alarm
of fire was given, each settler would immediately begin to
"back fire", which was done by setting on fire the prairie
grass immediately outside the plowed strip, which would
burn slowly and meet the advancing flames that came rolling
on in majestic grandeur.

Indians sometimes visited the early settlement but they
were seldom troublesome. The tribes at this time were peace-
ful. For weeks at a time the first settlers, Franklin and Shinn,
saw no one outside their own families save an occasional rov-
ing Indian. Chief Keokuk and 500 of his warriors once held
a war-dance on the Sni but they sent word to our settlers
that they meant no hann. Chief Keokuk was described by
the settlers as an imposing chieftain, a noble type of sav-
age warrior. Chief Black Hawk, who also occasionally visited
the settlement, was described as a little man with one eye.

Meantime, our settlement at Atlas continues to grow
apace. Other settlers have come and more log cabins have
been erected. School is begun (the first school in the county)
with John Jay Ross, son of Captain Ross as teacher. The
first school roster of 1822 contains the names of Orlando,
Charlotte, Schuyler, Mary Emily and Elizabeth Ross, Benja-
min, John, Eliza and Phoebe Shima, Jeremiah and William
Tungate, James, Laura and Nancy Sprague. James W.
Whitney (My Lord Coke), an eccentric character of the early
day, taught the second school at Atlas.

Settlers are now penetrating to other sections of the
county. Locations are made in what are now Pleasant Vale,
Pleasant Hill and Montezuma to\^Tiships and over in what
is now Flint toAvnship. Garrett Van Deusen is operating the
first Illinois river ferry, carrying footmen in a canoe and
swimming horses alongside. New industries are having a be-
ginning, rude at first, it is true, but ser^'ing well the purposes
of the early commimity. Colonel Benjamin Barney erects the
first blacksmith shop in the county at Atlas in 1826 and the

first Avliisky distilled in the county is manufactured by a Mr.
Milbizer in the same year. James Ross brings and uses the
first grain cradle in 1S2S and also equips and runs the first
turner's lathe and cabinet shop the same year. Fielding
Hanks becomes the first tanner and Colonel Ross the first
miller.

And now the little settlement at Atlas begins to take on
administrative airs. It has been named the county seat of
Pike county. Our settlers get together and decide that they
must have a courthouse. Plans are drawn and Daniel Shinn
takes the contract to cut and haul the logs for $6 and for $26
he gets out the puncheons and completes the edifice ■without
using a nail or bit of iron of any description. This first Pike
county courthouse Avas erected in 1824 on ground deeded to
the County Commissioners by Colonel Ross and Rufus
Brown. It stood 16x18 feet, had one door and two windows,
an outside chimney, and a clapboard roof, the clapboards be-
ing held on with Aveight poles and knees. The first court had
been held at Atlas on May 1, 1823.

Next in order after the courthouse is a jail, Avhich is
budded the same year (1824). Shinn also assists in building
the jail which is a primitive log affair without hot and cold
water and private baths. Hog stealing became prevalent
along the Sni, said to be induced by drinking Sni water, and
the new jail was designed principally as a place of confine-
ment for such of these gentry as were caught possessing a
hog's head and ears bearing some settler's recorded mark.
Prisoners were ushered into this bastile through an opening
in the roof.

And now, through the land-hungry east, spread like
Avildfire the news of the western settlements. As the follow-
ers of Roderick Dhu sprang to their feet among the heather
and peopled the mountain side at his shrill Avhistle, so those
of Bedouin spirits in the crowded East turned their faces to
this land of promise and soon throughout the eastern states
could be heard that steady Avestward tread of the Anglo
Saxon Avhich began in the first quarter of the nineteenth cen-
tury. NoAv Ave see this Avild region emerging from its wilder-
ness state, the red man, the panther and the rattlesnake being
pushed back by an on-rushing tide of emigrants from Mass-

achusetts and the Hudson valley, from Kentucky and finally,
on their ' ' prairie schooners ' ', the early settlers from Ohio and
Indiana, who, coming westward over the great National High-
way, crossed the fertile plains of Central Illinois to settle in
the well-watered timberlands of Pike and other western Illi-
nois counties.

Pike county has seen many comings and goings since that
first settlement in 1820. From these rude beginnings have
sprung a mighty commonwealth and a mighty race. Could
the men and Avomen of 1820 come back from the hither shore,
what a sight would greet their eyes. The old order has
changed. Prosperity is on every hand. Forgotten are the
loom and the spinning wheel, the hominy block and the
cradle. The log cabins are no more. Like the "chambered
nautilus" we have moved into more stately mansions. The
people of today — are of another kind. Those others, with
their rugged strength, their simple waj^s, their undying
youth, are of the past. Yet well may we bow in reverence
above their perished forms. They were the pathfinders. They
blazed the waj^ for those who were to follow them. They
braved all, endured all, suffered all. To them be the praise.
"Life ^viih. them is o'er, their labors all are done ;
And others reap the harvest that they Avon."

(Note— For the historical data of the foi-e-going Centen-
nial article the writer is indebted to Chapman's and Massie's
histories, to records of the Shinn, Ross, Burlend and other
early day families, to transcripts of the proceedings of the
first Old Settlers' meetings, and to anecdotes of pioneer ad-
venture handed down by Avord of mouth from the first set-
tlers to their descendants.)

PIONEER LOG CHURCH, COLES COUNTY, ILLINOIS.

By Alfred B. Balch, March 5, 1920.

Formoso, Kan. — [To the Editor:] In searching among
some old records I find that the first church built on Indian
creek was in 1832. Two years before, August 30, 1830, the
Presbyterian church was organized by Rev. B. F. Spil
man with the following fourteen members:

Thomas Myers, Agnes Myers, Theron Balch, Ann Boyd,
Thos. McCracken, Nancy McCracken, James Ashmore, Cas-
sandra Ashmore, Rachel Ashmore, Wm. Waynes, James
Logan and Elizabeth Logan. They met at the cabin of Ther-
on Balch for organization and it was the First Presbyterian
church established in Coles county.

The next summer, June 1st, 1831, the members met and
agreed to donate so many days of work each, in building a
church of logs 24x.30 feet in size. Wm. Bamett subscribed 2G
spikes and Wm. Wayne, .30 bushels of lime. That fall the
church was raised and covered. The flooring was sawed out
by a whip saw, the studding and roof were made of slabs split
out with a maul and wedge and dressed with an adz. The
seats consisted of long slabs placed on trestles, and the
church remained in its unfinished condition for about two
years.

The member who had subscribed lime having failed to
make good his donation. Rev. John McDonald, the pastor wlio
possessed energy in worldly matters as well as spiritual, with
the aid of Patrick Nicholson proposed to remedy the defi-
ciency.

Lime rock was found on Indian creek, logs were hauled
and placed on and around it, set afire and the rock reduced to
lime. Reverend McDonald with the aid of his parishioners
made the plaster and with his own hands the worthy Minister
plastered the church. It being cold weather the floor
was partially taken up and on a bed of sand a fire was built

which was kept burning until the plaster was thoroughly dry.

In 1834 the congregation secured the services of Eev.
James H. Shields of Indiana to preach one-half time but this
arrangement did not last long and he sent word resigning
his pastorate. The Eev. Isaac Bennett was then called to fill
the vacancy and he remained for several years. Finally Rev-
erend McDonald became the permanent pastor.

Passing events mdess made a matter of I'ecord soon glide
aAvay on cold oblivion's swift tide and become shrouded in
the mist of years.

MRS. ABHIE A. NEWMAN

MRS. ABBIE FAY NEWMAN.

]\Iemorial.

At the Presbyterian Church in the City of Dehivan on
Sunday afternoon, Nov. 28, occurred a joint meeting of the
Historical Society of Tazewell County and the Woman's Club
of Delavan, for the purpose of memorializing a foi-mer resi-
dent and teacher of Delavan, Mrs. Abbie F. Ne^nuan. There
was present a large audience consisting of her former neigh-
bors, co-church workers and pupils. The opening remarks
were made by W. R. Curran, President of the Historical So-
ciety of Tazewell County.

The musical numbers were arranged under the direction
of the Delavan Woman's Club and consisted of music that
Mrs. Newman was partial to in her lifetime.

The music was furnished by a quartette, Mrs. Lauren B.
Jenkins, Mrs. C. K. Million, Mr. Charles Duncan and Mr. Leo
Stumbaugh; the Abbie Newmian Mission Circle. Mrs. New-
man's favorite scrijiture was read from memory by Rev.
Hugh S. Jackson. Prayer was made by Rev. J. Rodger Sil-
lars. The Benediction was pronounced by Rev. Louis P.
Jansen.

The remarks of the President and various papers of the
program were substantially as follows :

Taking up now the consideration of the purpose of our
meeting and the program to be presented. Judge Curran said :
"This golden autumn afternoon in the presence of this aiidi-
once, in this place, on this ninetieth anniversary day of our
friend's birth, is a fitting occasion and propitious for our pur-
pose among neiglibors, friends and former pupils of the de-
parted to pay a gracious tribute to her memory. What I have
to say by way of introduction to this program, cluster about
two words, "History" and "Teacher !" When Ave consult our
own innermost consciousness and the pages of literature, we
know that :

"In a certain sense all men are historians."

"History is the essence of innumerable Biographies."

"History, as it lies at the root of all science, is also the
first distinct product of man's spiritual nature; his earliest
expression of what can be called Thought."

"Truth comes to us from the past, as gold is washed doAvn
from the mountains of Sierra Nevada, in minute but precious
particles, and intermixed with infinite alloy, the debris of
centuries. ' '

"History makes haste to record great deeds, but often
neglects good ones."

I came to this community in June 1876. I commenced to
learn portions of its history within an hour after my arrival.
I came a callow youth, licensed to practice my profession as
a lawyer, looking for a place to locate. I had been here but
a few days when I commenced to become conscious of the in-
fluence of Mrs. Abbie Newman. I had been a teacher in a
Country School for three years. Since my teaching days, I
had always been conscious of the fact that if life turned out
to be a failure in my profession and I was driven to it, I could
always find emplojonent in the district I had left. Among my
most intimate friends and associates, all of my life have been
teachers. In my school days, my teachers were the ones who
most profoundly impressed my ideals and formed them.

My wife, the mother of my children, was a teacher. My
most intimate life long associates have i)een teachers. I am
impressed with the fact that the leading men and minds of
this nation, at the present time, have been teachers. The
President of the United States was a teacher. The criticisms
of his administration have been that he had the limitations
of a teacher. I am led to say what in my heart I believe, God
Bless his limitations. I do not expect to become popular or to
be canonized on account of this opinion ; when I consider the-
recent discussion at the ballot box, I knoAv it is unpopular ; but
our President can wait, I have an abiding faith that a great-
ful America will yet enshrine his memory among her great
Presidents.

James H. Cartwright, Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court, of Illinois, as well as the majority of the members of
the court who sit with him, were in their youth, teachers.

I am moved to use on this occasion, the language that I
have used before concerning the common schools and the
teacliers thereof.

The growth of the common school ideal has kept pace with
the growth of the nation since the Eevolution; its greatest
development has been in the last fifty years ; as new territory
has opened up to settlement, as wealth and material prosperity
has developed, the like of which the world never saw
before ; the teacher has gone into every corner of our
dominion and has followed the flag to alien i^eoples
and the Islands of the Sea; until the common school is
a fortress to American institutions, more efficient and far
reaching in influence than battleships, fortified coast lines,
or standing armies. While the teacliers in the little school
house in the country district and in the more pretentious higli
schools are faithful to their tnist, this government of ours
■wall still live and the tri-color float in the sky.

We honor ourselves when we honor the teachers of
America; we honor ourselves when we memorialize teachers
like Mrs. Newman. A bare glance at this program reveals
the fact that she was not an idle or trivial person. I venture
the statement wliicli may not be concurred in by all, tliat tliis
teacher measured by the scope, power and effect of her pei'-
sonal influence in this community for the last fifty years, out-
weighs all the professional men, all the business men
and all the leaders of this community. She did not
occupy so much space in the public mind as some of
them, but at this Newman Memorial, I am quite certain that
she occupies more space in the public heart than all of them
put together. "—W. R. Curran.

MES. NEWMAX, TEACHER.

A woman of refined literary tastes, a talented musician,
a zealous patriot, a good citizen, a great teacher and an earn-
est clmrch worker, this can truthfully be said of Mrs. Abbie A.
Fay Newman.

The name Fay is of English origin. It claims distinction
in science, art and war. When duty called or patriotism de-
manded, the Fays responded. We find one, a warrior under
Chai'lemagne, and one a general under Napoleon, still another,

a general with Lafayette and Ms companion in prison
and so on down to the times of our own Revolutionary War.
Especial tribute is paid to Capt. Stephen Fay and his patriot
sons. The name is mentioned in the Indian Wars, in the War
of 1812 and in the Civil War. The names of 150 soldiers are
enrolled in the War Department. Mrs. Ne\\anan, too, was a
patriot.

That the religious element, which was strong in
her, has always predominated in the family is shown by the
large number of ministers, and by the hundreds, Avho have
been faithful church members. The family claims musicians,
writers, college graduates and teachers. One of the teachers
was Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin.

Abbie A. NeAvman was born at Westboro, Mass., Nov.
28, 1830. She was the third of eleven children. One brother
and one sister are still living. "\^n.ien young she had but a
limited chance for an education. Eight weeks in winter and
not more than six in summer. Later she was educated in
the schools of Westboro and in the Academies of Leicester
and Amherst. Slie taught in the public schools of Westboro
and Amherst and in the Misses Kellog's Female Seminary at
Great Barrington, Mass.

On April 7th, 1850, she was married to Mr. Burt New-
man. To them were born five children, namely: Henry D.
deceased in 1884, Annie S. (of Chicago), Samuel C. (of
Brookhm), Emma, (Mrs. Elmer Giles of Delavan, 111.,) and
Fred, deceased in 1920.

After her marriage, she and her husband went to Shaka-
pee, Minn. She had many experiences with the Sioux In-
dians. The tribe at that time often came into tlie town. One
day the big chief came into her home and flourished a toma-
hawk over her baby's head. She had enough tact and pres-
ence of mind to get the chief out of the house and thus save
the little one.

In 1857 the family went to Lower Alton, 111., to reside.
Mrs. Newman taught in the Alton primary and high schools.

In 1862, the family came to Delavan. Mrs. Newman
taught in the Delavan schools until her husband enlisted in
the Civil War, then she returned to the East and remained a
short time. Upon her return, she taught in schools in this

conmiuiiity and in the primary department of the Delavan
public schools for a third of a century.

Plundreds of men and women in this vicinity are proud
to say that Mrs. Newman was their teacher, but how much
prouder must those of her children and of her grandchildren
he who can say, "Mother or grandmother was our teacher."

In 1880, Mr. and Mrs. Newman celebrated their silver
anniversary and on April 7th, 1905 all their friends were in-
vited to their home for their golden anniversary.

If Mrs. Newman were living today, she would be ninety
years old. Those of us, who were associated with her, know
she was a great teacher. Her brother Frank, who is now
eighty years old, in a letter written to Mrs. Giles a short time
ago, says: "At the time I wanted to get into the High school,
father bought a black board, put it up in the shoe maker's
shop and Abliie tutored us — brother Parker and me. We
boys had to make all but the uppers of two pairs of boots each
day, earning $40 a month that way, while we went to school.
She helped us out. Before, Ave learned the rules of gram-
mar during school but did not put it into practice she would
say, 'A noun is the name of some thing. Read this page. See
how many you can find or, a proper noun is a particular name
like John or James and in that way all the parts of speech,
it was then not the dry meaningless study.' We soon took to
it and so with all our studies. I soon went to be examined
for High School.

The committee said, "No, you come from No. 2 school dis-
trict, no use.' I said, 'Give me a trial, will you?' They did
and we both passed easily. In High school we were soon
rattling off Latin with the rest."

This letter shows that even at an early age, she possessed
the unusual qualifications of a teacher; that by example, illus-
tration and the study of nature, she made things seem nat-
ural. She was a teacher ahead of her times. She was a
teacher, not only by nature, but also, by choice. She loved her
fellow teachers and pupils and they loved her. She never
wasted time.

She was the means of leading many a young person to
spend his spare time in study. It was a pleasure and a profit

to know Mrs. Newman and the influence of her life can be
expressed in no better words than in those of Owen Meredith :
"No life

Can be pure in its purpose and strong in its strife,
And all life not be purer and stronger thereby. ' '

Rosa A. Tomm,

Delavan, 111.

Mrs. Newman's Musical AcTrviTiES.

This gifted, energetic enthusiastic woman belonged to a
musical family and she always loved to sing. I heard one of
her sisters plaj" the pipe organ beautifully and one of her
brothers had a fine voice. Mrs. NcAvman had a musical so-
prano voice that carried well and she pronounced her words
very distinctly, of course she was a leader always.

Mrs. Theodore Thomas, wife of the distinguished Chi-
cago Orchestra leader, belonged to a branch of the Fay fam-

iiy-

Mrs. NeA^^uau took music lessons of a distinguished Pro-
fessor in Great Barrington, Mass.

Her fatlier gave her a Chickering piano which she
brought west with her.

After her marriage to Mr. Newman they moved to Min-
nesota, Avhere there were very few whites, but many Indians.
One day they surrounded the house and looked in the win-
dows. Mrs. Newman although much frightened flew to the
piano and played witli all her might for said she "I thought
if music hath charms to soothe the savage breast" I would
try the charm.

All the time they lived in Alton she was a member of a
quartette choir.

After moving to Delavan she conducted singing schools
in Delavan, Green Valley, Boynton, Cream Eidge and Holmes
school houses. She frequently walked to the school houses
and when she lived in the country she Avalked to town to meet
her appointments.

She rode horseback to Green Valley candying a young
baby and lea^'ing it Avith a friend while teaching the class in
singing and giving private lessons on the piano.

The first singing school that I know of her conducting
in Delavan was in the winter of '62 and '63 dui'ing the Civil
AVar. I have found three that remember attending that
school; Mrs. Mason, Mrs. Gertrude Wilson and Mr. James
Jones. It was held in a hall over the dining room in the old
Upham Hotel that stood on the grounds later occupied by
the fair association and where soon the Community High
School will be built.

There were no walks, it was a rainy muddy winter and no
one could walk there without having wet feet.

She taught us to sing by note using the Italian syllables,
she used tlie black board and we learned to read music up to
4 flats and 4 sharps.

There was always a concert at the end of every term of
lessons which was very thrilling and delightful to one young
person at least.

During the Civil war before Mr. Ne\\anan enlisted in the
amiy and before she went back east she was very busy with en-
tertainments to raise money for the soldiers. And for one of
them she wrote a very patriotic poem composed some music
for it and her wee little daughter sung it, her voice and the
words reaching every part of the hall. Part of the words
are as follows:

"Hurrah for the Union

Columbia looks sad

She weeps for her children

In factions gone mad

She trembles at sickness

But never looks blue

Her good constitution

"Will carry her through."

She gave the Oratorio of Esther in Delavan and once it
was given in costume and she was Queen Esther.

I think every gii-1 of my age and the older set took piano
lessons of her in those early years. Sometimes duties con-
flicted and she had to do two things at once. Occasionally the
baby had to be held and loved during the lesson. One time
when I was taking a lesson he brought his little foot down
with a bang on the keys, the foot was hastely removed and
the lesson went on without interruption.

She used to walk out to Mr. McCollister's, Mr. Walter
Sliurtz farm now, and give three lessons, 2 in the afternoon
to the girls and one in the evening to one of the boys, then
some one of the family took her home in the buggy.

She was organist of the Presbyterian church for 17
years, played the organ in the Baptist church one year, and
tlie organ in the Methodist church for 6 years. She would
take the baby and I remember one time the baby got tired,
laid down beside the organ and Avent to sleep. At another
time during a concert a small child went to sleep and was laid
under the piano for safe keeping. They were such convenient
babies.

Of course she taught music in the Public school and
in the Sunday school; she got up so many nice entertainments
for the School getting her material together from wherever
she could. One time she wanted to use the 4th verse of the 27th
Psahn she composed some very pretty music for it and had
Frank Hatten, then a little boy, sing it. The Avords are "One
thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seek after ; that I
may dAvell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to
behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in his temple."

Her mind worked like a flash and she was always equal
to emergencies. As for instance if an awkward pause oc-
curred in a religious meeting when no one was ready to take
part she would strike up some well known hymn and have
every one singing.

One time the lights went out during the service but she
commenced playing and singing and thus filled up the pause.

She was the organist in the prayer meeting up to the
time of her last illness.

She always said she would rather wear out than rust
and she had her wish. Mrs. Birdie Haddon.

Her Work as a Patriot.

Among the many who meet today in memory of Mrs.
Newman I am asked to record some facts of her Patriotism,
which by some may be considered simple ; yet to me, were the
most potent qualifications of her character, and were the
strong factors in her most useful life.

Patriotism does not consist wliolly in honoring tlie flag
of our country as much as we chei'isli its sacred colors; but
obedience to all things that build and peipetuate our nation.

Loyalty begins in the cradle and ends not at the grave;
for true Patriotism builds character for immortality.

It was my foi-tune and pleasure to be an intimate friend
of Mrs. Newman for a quarter of a centuiy, our acquaintance
began when we were asked to sing "The Star Spangled Ban-
ner," at a concert given at the close of a musical convention
held in the Methodist church by P. P. Bliss and his wife, who
were my guests, in the year 1869.

Now aft-er fifty years it seems strange that I am asked to
write of her Patriotism especially as our acquaintance be-
gan under the American Flag.

When my children were old enough to go to school Airs.
Newman was their first teacher and from childhood they never
ceased to love her and in the devotion of my own children to
Mi's. Newman I feel confident that I am voicing the sentiment
of every child who commenced its education under her kind
and motherly care.

I am reminded of the lessons of Patriotism which she ex-
emplified as she led the school children; a child on either side;
with a quick and finn step she marched on Decoration Day
in the procession to the Park, there to honor the memoiy of
the Boys in Blue with a loving tribute of flowers, and leading
in the Patriotic songs which she had taught the children to
sing.

Mrs. Newman was indeed qualified to participate in the
observance of the Day having contributed her part in service
and sacrifice to the cause of the Union.

When Mr. Newman enlisted in the service in Sept. 1864
Mrs. Newman with their three children went to her father's
home in Massachusetts, and stayed until Mr. Newman was
mustered out in 1865.

On the two evenings of Aug. 25 and 26, 186'4, Mrs. New-
man gave a concert of Patriotic songs in the Baptist church,
with 100 children taking part.

The proceeds were used to buy lumber for the constnic-
tion of a building known as the Wigwam, later as Plank-
walk Hall.

In this hall centered all the Patriotic activities of Dela-
van.

After the war was over the lumber in this hall was used
to build a side walk laid from the Post Office down to the Up-
ham Hotel, which stood on the site of the Fair Grounds.

The women did most of the work in sawing and nailing
the boards to build this first side Avalk in Delavan.

Among the many acts of Loyalty which Mrs. Newman
rendered was a Temperance meeting arranged for, the chil-
dren of Delavan on Saturday afternoon April 18, 1882.

The spirit of enthusiasm aroused as they sang the tem-
perance songs and the readiness with which they answered
the questions on alcohol and its effects; filled the parents
hearts with joy, and a hope that this m-eeting might prove to
1)6 a help and blessing to the little ones, and forever remain
in their memory.

A song composed by Mrs. E. E. Orendorff, calkd: — The
Boys and Girls Temperance Song was sung, to music com-
posed by Mrs. Newman.

"Our pledge is a promise that we will abstain,
From drink that will injure the heart and the brain
And we'll sing with glad hearts and glad voices the strain
We'll ne'er belong to King Alcohol's train.
Then bravely step forward and all sign the pledge.
When temptations assail 'tis a wall and a hedge,
A promise w^e'll try to keep and not break,
For country and home and dear mother's sake."

As a result of this meeting 98 boys and girls signed the
pledge which was sealed and put in the bank — there to re-
main 10 years.

A committee was appointed of the boys and girls whose
duty it was to keep acquainted with the location of the
signers and at the expiration of the time call a meeting, break
the seal and read the names.

March 18, 1892 under the auspices of the W. C. T. U.
and the supervision of Mrs. Newman the pledge was opened
and most all of the signers responded; and the pledges had
been kept.

May we appreciate this, Mrs. Newman's loyal service to
childhood and her countiy.

In 1892 the G. A. R. and W. E. C. of which Mr. and Mrs.
Newman were members, respectively, held their national
gathering in the far west.

Mrs. Newman was my travelling companion and was al-
ways agreeable and entertaining.

To know h'er best was to study her sunny nature, over-
flowing with kindness and good will.

Many tourists accompanied us on our journey and many
beautiful and wonderful places Avere visited.

On certain excursions the trips were made most pleasant
and enjoyable by the singing of the songs of " 61 " and " 65. "

Mrs. Newman became Leader of the Patriotic choir which
was received with enthusiasm every where.

The first place of interest visited was Pike 's Peak.

After wandering amidst the wonderful scenery of vast di-
mensions in height and depth Mrs. Newman looked still
higher than the Peak and exclaimed "Great and wonderful
are they woi'ks Oh! Lord God Almighty."

We visited Great Salt Lake and went bathing in its briny
water. Mrs. Newman happened to go a little beyond the
safety line and the guard called out "Hang to the rope or
you'll sink."

Mrs. Newman turned quietly and said "We are just as
near Heaven here as anj-Avhere else."

One morning quite early I missed her; thinking something
might have happened, I went in search of her and looking
toward the Granite Eocks piled here, there and everywhere, I
saw Mrs. Newman sitting on the highest rock to which she
could climb, waiting to see the sun rise.

As I sat beside her the same old sun that rises each
morning over the Illinois prairies, quietly announced the day.

At the first glimpse of the sun my companion began to
sing:

"When o'er earth is waking,
Eosy bright and fair
Morn aloud, proclaimeth
Surely God is there."

We stood under the mist of Yosemite Falls until we were
damp with its moisture and Mrs. Newman remarked she had
been blessed with the mists of heaven.

In crossing tlie mountains and places of danger of any
kind she Lad no fear.

At one time Avhen riding over the mountains the driver
called our attention to a mirage across the valley on the face
of the mountain and said "This phenomenon has never been
explained. ' '

We wondered what Mrs. Newman would reply. And she
turned and said, "I have at last seen the Shepherds, of the
hills and their flocks."

After a few days journey in mountain stages we reached
Inspiration Point where we could take our first look into
Yosemite Valley.

Mrs. NeAAonan caught the first glimpse and standing up
on the seat she said : "I thank God and the people of Dela-
van for making it possible for me to realize the desire of my
life, to see the Yosemite Valley."

With oUier tourists we stood on the shores of Mirror
Lake, in close touch of many canons. Our attention was
called to the numerous echoes which were found. After a
moments silence our choir leader connnenced to sing "Nearer
My God to Thee" all joining in the sacred song — and back
came the heavenly echoes : — ' ' Nearer to Thee. ' '

A minister in the party was called on by Mrs. NcA^Tiian
to offer prayer and such a prayer, one which could not have
been inspired elsewhere.

While roaming the forests of the Mariposa Valley we saw
trees which towered 300 feet in height, with 25 other tourists
we gathered in a hollow log, and gazed heavenward at the
queen of the forest. Mrs. New^nan remarked "0 Woodman
how long thou hast spared the ax!"

One night I found Mrs. NcAATuan's pocket book contain-
ing her money and ticket and fearing she might lose them
again I took them — and said nothing except to Mrs. Carrie
Briggs — one of our party. We took the train for Los An-
geles and when Mrs. Newman discovered her loss she came
straight to me and said: "Sue — have you got my ticket. I
said, Mrs. Newman this is one of the times the Lord didn't
take care of you" and her reply was "The Lord raised you
up to take care of me."

As I gave hei' the lost article she began to sing.
"Bring the good old bugle Boys we'll sing another song."
A most patriotic, timely and appropriate acknowledge-
ment of her complete trust in God.

SUE A. SANDERS.

Mes. Newman's Club Work.

I do not know that Mrs. Newman ever belonged to a
purely social club; but whatever tended to intellectual or
moral uplift she heartily supported with time, thought, work
and money. Consequently she was a leading member of sev-
eral organizations.

She was one of the first in Delavan to join the "Woman's
Christian Temperance Union." Although school duties pre-
vented her from attending the meetings, she Avas of great
assistance in helping to plan the entertainments, in teaching
the children temperance songs and in composing those songs.

She Avas a leading member of the "Conversational Club,"
which was composed of a group of ladies who met frequently
to discuss scientific or other topics of general interest.

She belonged to the "Shakespeare Club" from its be-
ginning until her death. She delighted in the beautiful pas-
sages of the great poet and could repeat many of them.

It was in the Beta Circle that her wonderful versatility
found an opportunity for free action. This was a branch of
the Chautauqua movement devoted to a four year course of
study in science, literature and history as planned by Bishop
Vincent and his associates. The Beta Circle was organized
in Dolavan in 1886 and barely existed a yegr or so when
Mrs. Newman became its president. Then all was changed
for she brought into it some of her abundant life. Under her
direction it filled a need, and during the nine .years of its ex-
istence many of the prominent women of Delavan and vi-
cinity were enrolled in its membership took the course of
study and became Chautauqua graduates.

The Circle held all day meetings once a month at the
homes of its members. At first the hostess provided the noon-
day meal l)ut during most of the time it Avas a picnic dinner —
a veritable feast of reason and flow of soul," always pre-
sided over by Mrs. Newman.

100

Do not suppose these meetings dull and heavy even if the
studies were scientific, as geology, zoology, botany or po-
litical economy; together with the history and literature of
Greece and Rome, both mediaeval and modern, they were not
heavy because Mrs. Newman prepared the programs, and had
the happy faculty of judiciously mingling mth the heavier
studies anagi'ams, rebuses, charades and contests, illustrative
of these studies, with athletics, bible cards and whatever else
her fertile mind suggested. There was nothing dull or prosy
about Mrs. Ne\^Tnan.

The scientific studies were her delight, especially geol-
ogy. In it she traced the long, loving preparation of the
Father for his coming myriads of children. She purchased
many and sometimes costly geological specimens to be
shown in the circle.

In astronomy she was impressed with the infinity of God.
In history she traced the evolutions of man to higher stand-
ards.

I wish that my description might give you all the glow of
pleasure that the members experienced when they gathered
together, knowing that the day would hold so much for them.
It was never too hot, too cold or too stormy for those meet-
ings. There were no vacations for no one wanted one. Mrs.
NcM^man never missed a meeting. She said that she loved her
children, and next to them the Beta Circle. Every member
felt and knew that she had the personal love of Mrs. New-
man.

While all the meetings were enjoyable, those at Mrs. New-
man's w^ere 'jred letter days." She was a model hostess.
Have any of the members forgotten the Celebration of the
Landing of the Pilgrims ; or that Bible meeting when all the
Sunday School teachers were invited guests! Can any of
them pass that old, spreading home without memories'?

Times change. At last nearly all of the members had
completed the course of study and desired something differ-
ent. The Beta Circle became the Woman's Club with Mrs.
Newman its first president, and afterwards its honorary pres-
ident. If the change gave her pain, as it must, she gave no
sign; biit performed every task assigned her cheerfully and
well.

101

I will confide to you what she once confided to me. Pleas-
ant meetmgs and storing the mind Avith thoughts worth while
were not the only aims she had for the Beta Circle. She
hoped that by bringing the women together in this pleasant
way from the different churches, different parts of town,
different cliques, the town Avomen and the country women,
that they would become better acquainted and create a
stronger community siDirit.

We do not know the amount of influence felt today from
Mrs. Newman's work in these different clubs to which she
belonged. But we do know that it is all for good.

LOUISE B. ALLEN.

"Kind words are little simbeams.

That sparkle as they fall,

And loving smiles are sunbeams

A light of joy to all.

In sorrow's eye, the^'^ dry the tear.

And bring the fainting heart good cheer."

These words were written in an old fashioned autograph
album by Mrs. Newman for a little girl starting to school.
Could a better verse be given one by which to live ?

Mrs. Newman began her active public religious life by
uniting with the Westboro Congregational church when she
was sixteen years old.

A younger brother tells of her help in learning tlie As-
sembly's Shorter Catechism Avhieh he could not memorize
alone. When she found him crying over it, the sister said,
"learn it with me," and soon tears were forgotten and he
knew "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him
forever." The trend of her life was to honor her Savior, the
same brother Avrites.

After her marriage to Mr. Newman they went to IMinne-
sota to live at Shak'apee and here she helped to found a
Presbyterian church.

In 1862 she miited with the Presbyterian church in Dela-
van. The Sabbath school had the privilege of having her as
Superintendent for twenty-four years. For the same num-
ber of years, she taught a class in the Sabbath school.

103

Is there one who passed through the first grade in the
Delavan Public school during the many years Mrs. Newman
taught it who does not remember the morning devotional exer-
cises? Then we learned such well loved passages as the
twenty-third Psalm, the first and twenty-fourth Psalms, the
thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians and the Beatitudes.
We bowed our heads and repeated the Lord's prayer.

The day started differently when school children had the
privilege of the few sober moments of devotion to God and
there is never a time that these precious verses are heard or
repeated that we do not recall the smiling, happy face of her
who taught them.

That happy Christian influence that was felt by so many
children can never be measured. It was so far reaching, ex-
tending to so many homes and into the building of new homes
as the years went by. Added to this influence who but re-
members each Wednesday evening seeing or meeting Mrs.
Newman's familiar figure going to Prayer Meeting. There
she played the hymns, offered her prayer and took any other
part she was called upon to take. Always ready and willing
to fill any vacancy in any department of church life.

Early Sabbath morning her work began. The singing
and scripture lesson in the Sabbath School ahvays had a ring
of happiness and earnestness as the children naturally fol-
lowed the same feeling as evidenced by Mrs. Newman.

Special days in Sabbath School were always observed in
a special manner, all the preparation and the material fur-
nished by this untiring, zealous leader.

Printed programs were not so easily procured but we
had the programs of Mrs. Newman. I often feel that these
might have been kept so this generation might know Avhat
beautiful thoughts and fine precepts were given us to learn.

Wlio can forget the class if they Avere in it and liad Mrs.
Newman for a teacher? Her Bible was ever iDresent with her
and as much a part of her as anything she possessed, and
Avhen she came before her class she had it, and the truths of
the Bible were presented with the vim of eternal j^outh and
carried the conviction to each one that these same truths had

103

been taken into her life and become a part of her through her
close walk with her Savior, whom she so faithfully and con-
stanth' upheld to every one with whom she came in contact.

Was there ever a game of authors played with as much
real pleasure as was experienced by those who have had Mrs.
Ne^\'man's Bible Cards of the Old and New Testament made
and i^rinted by herf

They bring to mind all the familiar Bible heroes and
events which stand out. Also the beautiful life of Christ, the
acts of His followers, the Missionary Journeys and many
beautiful things one forgets in the rush of things.

Where could she find the hours to devote to all these va-
rious activities? One is tempted to think God made more
time for her, but not so, she used every minute to His glory
in all things she did, small or great. Words seem futile when
one tries to bring this full, lovely Christian life before her
friends for each of us has a garden of beautiful flowers which
were planted by this kind friend.

Her influence is surely felt in a marked degree by neAv
comers to Delavan as tliev often s])eak of Mrs. Newman Avliom
they seem to know as a living influence as felt by them in their
contact with us who were her friends.

It seems to me we are granted a great privilege to have
a small part in this memorial to Mrs. Newman. It isn't wliat
we say so much as what w^e feel and live that is our real living
memorial to her.

If one tries even in a small measure to live up to and to
put into practice the truths she lived and taught, this memor-
ial will live on in the minds and hearts of all of us and into the
future life of Delavan.

WHien our Praise Meeting was held in January 1908, Mrs.
Newman had a part as always and I will read what she gave of
her o\n.\ that day.

EDNA H. CRABB.

The late Mrs. Newman was the author of the following,
read by her at the last annual prayer and j^raise meeting of
the Presbyterian Missionary Society, in January. It is here-

104

with printed in full, in response to a request by a member of
the society.

We are known as the Presbyterian Missionary Society,

Ajid we think with great propriety

That we must have a Praise Meeting each year,

And the exercises, to our hearts, are dear.

0, Time, Time, how fleeting, fleeting,

Since our 1907 Praise Meeting!

Now again in 1908, the same old story,

We'll all give God the glory.

Let our heartfelt praises rise

Like sacred incense to the skies.

Praise should dAvell on every tongiie,

Loving praise in every song;

Praise to God, our Father above,

Who looks do\\ii in infinite love;

The touch of love here, the touch of love there —

Let us praise God everywhere

Praise God the Father, God and Son,

God the Spirit, three in One;

Then strive dail}^ that his will be done.

"Glorious are all his works and ways."

Why should we have a Missionary

Society? For the reason, "Union is strength."

We know that no Christian woman doth live

But to the clear Lord's cause some good can give.

Some are called to leave their homes so dear,

That they the heathen's heart may cheer.

Christ died for all, both great and small.

And before he ascended to heaven above.

He said in strongest words of love,

"Go ye into all the world"

With the gospel flag unfurled.

Study the women and children of all climes.

Send your dollars, send your dimes,

Send them on for Missionary work ;

Don't let one of us dare to shirk.

But do God's Avill, and do it in love;

Help people to learn of God above.

"He sees with equal eye, as God of all"

105

The poor heathen babes and the mothers tall.

Love for souls creates a noble flame —

It's next to angels' love, if not the same.

"Giving empties the hand, but fills the heart;"

We surely want to do our part.

God's truth is precious and divine;

Shall not we send it to every clime?

That all may know the way of the best.

And darkened hearts learn on Avhom to rest

Give to the world God's truth;

Give it to father, mother, youth.

0, Light of God's love, the purity of grace,

Who would not bless all the human race?

Try to help others to make Jesus their choice

And listen, and love his heavenly voice.

Then shall we reach his court above.

"Our present life is scarce the twinkle of a star,"

But God will help us, He is not far.

The Savior will bless, in God 's eternal day ;

He is our present help; shall "w^e not all work and pray?

That souls may be won

And his kingdom come?

Then we'll praise, praise, praise,

Forever, Amen and Amen.

After the last number of the literary program, Mr. Leo
Stumbaugh, leader of the Presbyterian choir, sang with tell-
ing etf ect, ' ' The City Four Square. ' '

The original manuscripts of the foregoing addresses will
be prescinded in the archives of the Tazewell Couunty His-
torical Society, where they can be inspected at any time by
any of the friends of Mrs. Newman who care to do so.

The occasion is one long to be remembered by the friends,
neighbors, and former pupils of Mrs. Abbie A. F. Newman.

106

EARLY METHODISM IN MOUNT CARMEL, ILLINOIS.

By Theodore G. Eisley.

Tlie pioneer Methodists came into the wilderness with
the first groups of settlers that filed out on the frontier lines
of civilization. They encountered and endured all vicissitudes
and perils of the wild frontier, and never wavered in their
efforts to promulgate the gospel, organize religious societies
and build houses of worship. They constantly pushed their
itinerant efforts farther westward, ever keeping pace with the
wide sweep of advancing civilization. They traveled vast cir-
cuits on horseback and were often exposed to the murderous
attacks of savages, the fatigue of long and toilsome journeys,
and were commonly provided with only crude and meager ac-
commodations.

Methodism founded Mount Carmel and their history is co-
existent. Two Methodist ministers, the Eev. Thomas Hinde
and the Rev. William McDowell, Avho had conceived the pur-
pose of founding a city on moral principles, that would enable
them to carry out, in practical results Avhat they believed to
be the true ideals of the Methodist faith and teachings, came
from Chillicothe, Ohio, in 1816, and located the present site
of the city of Mount Carmel and in the spring of 1817 laid the
foundations of the city. Soon after their arrival they were
joined by the Rev. William Beauchamp. He was a surveyor
as well as a preacher. He surveyed the town site and laid it
off into lots. These devout founders of the new toAvn pre-
scribed a code of municipal laws by which it should be gov-
erned. They were rigidl.y puritanical and were largely molded
after the old "blue laws" of Connecticut, which ultimately be-
came so odious, but at that time were believed to be piously
wholesome and beneficent enactments for the regulation of
civil and moral conduct.

These hardy and self-sacrificing pioneers were intelli-
gent, resolute and energetic enthusiasts and were inspired

107

with a zealous ambition to serve humanity. The father of
Thomas Hinde was at one time a surgeon in the British army
and in that capacit^^ was attaclied to the vessel which General
Wolfe left to go ashore and fight the French army under the
renowned General Montcalm, on the plains of Abraham, and
dressed the Avounds of that lieroic commander when he fell,
gloriously, in the immortal struggle which forever made North
America a land of Protestanism instead of becoming a French
Catholic province.

These devout founders were actuated by pious zeal and
intended that their city should be characterized by its moral
purity. Brother Beauchamp had already served faithfully
and successfully as a minister and as an editor of a pioneer
journal. Pie embarked on the new enterprise with unwearied
zeal and unfaltering faith. While engaged in the ministry in
Mount Carmel he announced his meetings by the blowing of a
trumpet. In those far off days the oppressive silence and
weird solitude of the wilderness were unbroken by the melodi-
ous tones and rythmic cadence of church bells. He soon be-
came famed far and near, as a camp meeting revivalist, and
multitudes came from great distances to hear him proclaim
gospel truths. Whil? conducting one of his greatest meetings,
in the state of Indiana, he was stricken with a fatal malady
and soon passed to the undiscovered realms of eternity. The
])resent splendid Methodist church was named in memory of
tliis consecrated and massive evangel of Methodism.

In 1819 Eev. Qharles Slocumb was appointed to the pas-
torate of the Mount Carmel circuit, which was the first regu-
larly established circuit of the Methodist church in Illinois.
It then embraced all the territory from Terre Haute to the
mouth of tlie Wabash river. In 1824 the Methodists of Mount
Carmel erected the first brick church in the state, and in it,
in 1827, was held the first annual Methodist conference. This
conference was presided over by Bishop Robert A. Eoberts,
the sixth Methodist bishop. The bishop was one of the truest
types of pioneer preachers our countrv has produced. He
clied March 27, 184.3.

At the conference of 1827 there assembled a number of
men who afterwards became famous in the church. Rev.

108

Adam Wood and Rev. Charles Holliday were the last of its
notable survivors.

It was at this conference that the celebrated Peter Cart-
wright offered the suggestion, which was embodied in a reso-
lution and adopted by the conference, for the establishment
of a Methodist institution of learning and which ultimately re-
sulted in the founding of the McKendree college.* This popu-
lar institution, in the order of its formation, is the oldest col-
lege in Illinois. The citizens of Lebanon subscribed its first
fund amounting to the munificent sum of $1,385. Its first in-
structions were given November 24, 1828, under Rev. Edward
Ames, the devout personal friend of President Lincoln and
upon whom the great war president often leaned heavily for
support and comfort amid the perils of the Civil war. Bishop
Ames was the statesman of Methodism. In 1830 Bishop Mc-
Kendree made a donation of land to the infant school and
for that reason it was appropriately named in his honor. It
actually became a college in 1836 and graduated its first class
in 1841.

Among the bishops who have presided at conferences
held in Mount Carmel are to be found the names of Roberts,
Scott, Baker, Bowmian, Andrews, McCabe and Quayle.

* An Act of the Legislature approved Feb. 9, 1S35, authorized in one Act
the incorporation of four colleges in Illinois, namely: The Alton College,
[Shurtleff,] Illinois College, the McKendreean College, and Jonesborough
College."

109

A LOST STARK COUNTY TOWN.

By William R. Sandham, Wyoming, Illinois.

During the years between 1830 and 1840 there ^vas a great
mania in land speculation in the state of Illinois. One line of
this speculation was the platting of tovm sites, and by exten-
sive advertising selling lots at the highest possible profiteer-
ing prices. A great many of those towns proved to be in good
locations and they are now prosperous villages and cities.
A still greater number of those speculative paper towns have
fallen by the wayside, and they have left scarcely a tradi-
tional remembrance. Several of such towms were laid out
in Stark county. Among them we mention LaPayette, Wyom-
ing, Slackwater, Massillon, Moulton and Osceola. Of them
only LaFayette and Wyoming have become prosperous busi-
ness centers. All the others have gone or are fast going
out of the memory of nearly everybody. There is a tradi-
tion that some of the promoters and speculators in the Wyom-
ing and Osceola town lots sent circulars broadcast through
the eastern states, proclaiming the desirability of OAvning lots
in those towms as they were bound to grow into large and pros-
perous cities. The ti'adition is that those circulars described
both of those towns as being located at the head of navigation
on Spoon river and that they already w^ere growing commer-
cial towns. The purpose of this article is to tell something
about the lost town of Osceola and its founder. Major Robert
Moore.

It is well known that in 1817 the United States govern-
ment had the lands between the Illinois and Mississippi riv-
ers surveyed as far north as the north boundary of what is
now Mercer county, with the object of donating one hundred
and sixty acres of land to each of the soldiers of the War of
1812. This piece of land was designated as the ''Military
Tract" by which name it is still known.

110

The United States by patent, February 9, 1818, conveyed
to Daniel Crottnell, as a partial recompense for his services as
a private in Eamsey's First Rifle Corps in the War of 1812,
the southwest quarter of section tAvelve of what is now El-
mira township, Stark county, Illinois. On June 22, 1819, Dan-
iel Crottnell, then of Warren county, Ohio, conveyed the same
quarter section to William Frye for sixty dollars. On April
22, 1822, William Frye then of Pike county, Illinois, conveyed
the same quarter section to Elias Kent Kane of Kaskaskia,
Illinois, for one hundred dollars. Elias Kent Kane, for whom
Kane county, Illinois was named, was a cousin of Elisha
Kent Kane of Arctic exploration fame, and was United States
senator from Illinois from 1825 to 1835. On February 16,
1824, Elias Kent Kane conveyed the above described quarter
section to Major Robert Moore of St. Genevieve, Missouri, for
one hundred dollars. The same piece of land was sold for
taxes, for $2.69, in 1834, to Thomas Ford who was governor
of Illinois from 1842 to 1846. The tract was redeemed by
Major Moore and reconveyed to him February 10, 1836.

Some time in the early part of 1835 Major Robert Moore
came to this part of Illinois to view his land and to become
the operator of a ferry on the Illinois river at Peoria. As
operator of the ferry he became acquainted with the Bus-
wells, the Spencers and others Avho had come from Vermont,
and the Halls who had come from England, to purchase and
settle on lands in Illinois. Major Moore had a map which
showed the unentered government lands in the north eastern
part of what is uoav Ehnira township in Stark county. He
gave the land seekers such a glowing description of those
lands that they then and there concluded to settle there or in
that vicinity. As all who are versed in the history of Stark
county well know, those peojile whom Major Moore induced
to settle in what is now Stark county, came to be among the
most prosperous and the most highly respected residents of
the county, and their highly ]")rized characteristics have come
down to their descendants Avho are now living in the county.

Major Robert Moore with the assistance of the county
surveyor of Putnam county, of which the land that is now El-
mira township was then a part, surveyed and platted a town
site on the foregoing described quarter-section. He named it

Ill

Osceola after the Seminole warrior Osceola, the Indian leader
in the Florida Indian war. There were four others, James 0.
Armstrong, Thomas J. Hnrd, D. C. Enos and EdAvard Dick-
enson, who were associated with Major Moore in the promo-
tion and sale of lots in the new town. The new town as
platted consisted of forty-eight blocks of ten lots each, with
a large "Washington Square" in tlie center. The plat was
dated July 7, 1836, and was i-ecorded on page 278 in book D,
in the recorder's office in Hennepin, the County seat of Put-
nam county.

The exalted hopes of Major Moore and his associates
ended in disappointment, for the reason that the people who
came to settle in this part of Illinois, preferred to make their
homes in and near the groves a short distance west of the
new town. Some time during the latter part of 1837 a post
office was established about a mile west of the Osceola town
site, and named Elmira after Elmira, New York, the former
home of Oliver Whitaker the first post master. In 1845 that
post office was moved to the west side of Spoon river and tlie
name was moved with it. Some years later another post-
office was established on the first site of the Elmira office and
named Osceola. A village grew up around the post office,
which has "since been kno^Am as Osceola. The large grove in
the vicinity naturally took upon itself the name of Osceola
grove.

Major Moore sold all his interest in the Osceola toAvn site
and in the quarter section on which it was located May 2,
1839, just two months after the county of Stark was created.
His son, James Madison Moore, OAmed a one-half interest in
the quarter section from February 25, 1841, to April 21, 1842.
The record books in the recorder's office in Toulon show that
the Osceola town site was vacated by the OAAaiers, Isaac Spen-
cer, Timothy Carter and Oliver Whitaker. The vacating
deed was filed for record July 16, 1845. The vacation of the
Osceola tovra site was legalized by the Illinois General As-
sembly in February, 1855. The quarter section on which was
located the lost town of Osceola is now productive farm land.

Major Robert Moore, the founder of the lost town of Os-
ceola, was born in Franklin county, Pennsylvania, October
2, 1781. He was married to Miss Margaret Clark, who Avas

112

also a native of Franklin county, Pennsylvania, April 18,
1805. He served as a soldier in the War of 1812, and later as
a major of militia in Pennsylvania. In 1822 he and his fam-
ily moved to St. Grenevieve county, Missouri. He was a Jus-
tice of the Peace in that state for several years, and a member
of the Missouri legislature in 1831 and 1832. In 1835 he moved
to Illinois and became the operator of a ferry at Peoria, and
the founder of the lost town of Osceola as heretofore stated.
From all the information obtainable it is evident that Major
Moore and his family lived for a time in Stark county.

Some time during the year 1839 Major Kobert Moore
moved to Oregon, leaving his wife at the home of a son in
St. Louis, Missouri, while he prepared a new home in that
far distant territory. It has been authoritatively stated that
Major Moore was with one of the first parties that went to
Oregon by crossing the mountains which are between the
Mississippi river and the Pacific ocean. He boug'ht govern-
ment land near the Willamette river, about fifty miles south
of Portland. Mrs. Moore died at the home of her son in St,
Louis before the new home in Oregon was ready for occu-
pancy. Major Moore died in Linn county, Oregon, Septem-
ber i, 1857. In her history of "Stark County and Its Pio-
neers" Mrs. Eliza Hall Shallenberger said this: "Major
Moore was an intelligent and active business man, ever ready
to take advantage of circumstances, and fond of adventure."

Major Bobert Moore's son, James Madison Moore, lived
in Stark county for several years. He moved to Oregon about
1842. Robert Morrison Moore, Major Robert Moore's young-
est son, was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, August 26,
1820. He came to Avhat is now Stark county, Illinois, Avith
his father about 1837. He Avas married October 14, 1844, to
Miss Maria White, daughter of HcAves White who was the
pioneer blacksmith of Elmira toA^^lship. Mr. White moved
to Toulon in 1847. Mr. and Mrs. Robert Morrison Moore
lived in Elmira township until the death of Mrs. Moore,
March 9, 1874. A short time after the death of his Avife Mr.
Moore moved to Toulon, Avliere he lived until the time of his
death, January 29, 1890. His youngest son, James Corydon
Moore, who is Avell knoAvn in Stark county, uoav lives in San
Diego, California.

113

A SHORT COURTSHIP AND A HAPPY MARRIED LIFE.

A Reminiscence of the Early History of Stark County,
Illinois.

By William E. Sandham, Wyoming, Illinois.

Among the first settlers of what is now LaSalle county,
Illinois, were Louis Bayley and his wife, Betsey Butler Bay-
ley. To them a son Avas born July 17, 1828, whom they named
Augustus, and wlio was the first white child born in what is
now LaSalle county. Louis Bayley was a soldier in the War
of 1812. His father, Timothy Bayley, was a soldier in the
Revolutionary War. Mrs Betsey Butler Bayley died in the
year 1840, leaving to be cared for by her husband, Louis Bay-
ley, their two living children, Augustus and Timothy, the
latter being three years old.

During the time between 1835 and 1855 there was among
the itinerant preachers of Illinois, who were generally known
as circuit riders, one named Rev. William S. Bates whose
circuit included Stark and LaSalle counties. Mr. Bates and
Mr. Bayley were warm personal friends, and when he was in
LaSalle county Mr. Bates always made his headquarters at
Mr. Bayley 's home. On one of his visits to Mr. Bayley 's
home, the traveling preacher found Mr. Bayley to be a very
busy man. Besides his work as a farmer and as the operator
of a sawmill, he was doing his house Avork with the assistance
of his eldest son. "Well, Mr. Bayley," said the preacher
after the usual greetings, "you need a wife to do your cook-
ing, to care for your house work and to look after the Avelfare
of your two boys." I assure you that I know that what you
are telling me is true" said Mr. Bayley. "I do not know
where I can find such a woman, one who is willing to marry
me and assume the responsibilitj" of doing the things that are
needed to be done in my home." "Well," said Mr. Bates,
"perhaps in my work as an itinerant preacher, I can find such
a woman. If I do I will let you know. ' '

114

In the early part of the year 1843 the itineracy of the Eev.
Mr. Bates brought him into LaSalle county, and as usual he
stopped to stay over night with his friend, Louis Bayley.
After supper, which had been prepared by Mr. Bayley and
his son August, Mr. Bates told Mr. Bayley that he had found
a woman he was satisfied would make him a good wife and
one who would be a kind mother to his two boys. "Tell me
about her," said Mr. Bayley." "The woman's name is Mary
Lake" said the preacher, "and she lives with a brother-in-
law named Sewell Smith, who lives just south of Spoon river
on section 14 in Essex township in Stark county. I have seen
her and I have told her about you and your home and your
two boys. I advise you to go to see her."

A few days after the circuit rider went on his way, Mr.
Bayley hitched a team of his best horses to a light wagon and
started for Spoon river. On the evening of March 19th he ar-
rived at the farm now o^^med by Sol and Jesse Cox, two miles
south of Wyoming and just north of Spoon river, where he
stayed that night. The next day he forded Spoon river a few
rods below what is now known as the Bailey bridge. In a
very short time he knocked on the door of the SoAvell Smith
home, and a woman opened the door. "I am Louis Bayley
of LaSalle county, ' ' said the visitor, ' ' and I am looking for a
woman named Mary Lake." The woman quickty extended
her right hand and said "I am Mary Lake. Come right in.
I know Avhat you have come for." It is enough to say here
that Louis Bayley and Mary Lake were married before the
setting of the sun on that day, March 20, 1843. The follo^ving
day Mr. and Mrs. Louis Bajdej^ left Stark county for their
home in LaSalle county. All tlie reports which have come down
through the sons and grandsons of Louis Bayley and the
neighbors Avho knew them intimately, tell the same storj^
that Mr. and Mrs. Bayley had a very happy married life.

Louis Bayley sold his property in LaSalle county in the
year 1849 and moved to Stark county. He bought the eighty
acre farm Avhere he found Mary Lake March 20, 1843. That
eighty acre tract is now owned by Louis Bayley 's grandson,
Orpheos Bailey, son of Augustus Bailey, who as stated was
the first white child born in what is now LaSalle county. Mrs.
Mary Lake Bayley died March 3, 1861, and Mr. Bayleyhad in-

115

scribed on her tombstone, "A GOOD WIFE AND A KIND
STEPMOTHER." Louis Bayley died at Forest Grove,
Washington County, Oregon, in 1876, aged 92 years. His son
Augustus died in Stark county, Illinois, August 26, 1905. The
son Timothy lives in Pacific county, Washington.

The circuit rider and pioneer preacher, Rev. William S.
Bates, after he retired from active service as a preacher,
owned and lived on the southeast quarter of the north quarter
of section 28 in Essex township. Stark county, Illinois, from
1857 to 1864.

The spelling of the name Louis Bayley, as here given, is
the way Louis Bayley spelled the name. The other members
of the Bailey family spell the name Bailey. The marriage
record in the office of the County Clerk in Toulon has the
spelling Lewis Bayley.

EDITORIAL

119

JOURNAL OP 1

THE ILLINOIS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

Published Quarterly by the Society at Springfield, Illinois.

JESSIE PALMER WEBER, EDITOR.

Associate Editors:

George W. Smith Andrew Russel H. W. Clendenin

Edward C. Page

Applications for membership in the Society may be sent to the Secretary of
the Society, Mrs. Jessie Palmer Weber, Springfield, Illinois.

Membership Fee, One Dollar — Paid Annually. Life Membership, $25.00

Vol. Xni. April, 1920. No. L

ANNUAL MEETING OF THE ILLINOIS
STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

The twenty-first annual meeting of the Illinois State His-
torical Society will be held in the Senate Chamber in the
Capitol building at Springfield, on Friday, May 14, 1920.

The annual address will be delivered by Hon. 0. A.
Harker of the University of Illinois. The subject of Judge
Harker's address is "Fifty years with the Bench and Bar of
Southern Illinois."

The State of Illinois has supplied to the cause of equal
suffrage some of its most prominent and influential workers.
This state was also the first to ratify the Nineteenth Amend-
ment to the Constitution of the United States which gave to
women full rights as citizens.

Mrs. Grace Wilbur Trout who has borne a great part in
the work which achieved this result, will tell the Society the
story of the suffrage movement and its final victory as it re-
lates to Illinois. Her address is entitled — "Some Sidelights
on Illinois Suffrage History."

120

Miss Mary E. McDowell, noted settlement worker and
antlior will give an aeconnt of lier "Twenty-five years in an
Industrial Community. ' '

Prof. Arthur C. Cole, one of the authors of the Centennial
history, will speak to the Society on "Illinois Women of the
Middle Period."

The addresses of Mrs. Trout, Miss McDowell, and Pro-
fessor Cole, taken together with the splendid address of Mrs.
Joseph C. Bowen, given before the Society last year on the
part taken by the women of Illinois in the "World War, will
present a ^Hvid picture of the work and influence of the
women of Illinois in the philanthropic and economic develop-
ment of the State, from the beginning of the Civil War to the
present time.

The transactions of the Society for this year will be of
great interest to those interested especially in the work of
women.

Mr. Charles Bradshaw of Carrollton, Illinois, editor of
the Patriot, of that city, will relate the interesting history of
Greene County, which is this year one hundred years old.

Another address will be given by Mrs. Edna Armstrong
Tucker of Rock Island, who will speak on the life and work of
Benjamin Walsh, the first state Entomologist of Illinois.

One of the pleasant features of the annual meeting of the
Society will be the usual luncheon.

DE. EDMUND J. JAMES RESIGNS AS PRESIDENT OF

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS ON ACCOUNT OF

ILL HEALTH.

Dr. Edmund J. James tendered his resignation as presi-
dent of the university of Illinois at the annual meeting of the
board of trustees at Urbana, Tuesday, March 9, 1920. No
action was taken because of the lack of a quorum. The resig-
nation will be accepted at the next meeting of the board.

Dr. James will probably be made president emeritus of
the University dating from September 1, 1920, with such re-
tiring allowance as the board may decide. It is understood
that Dr. David Kinley who has been acting president since
president James temporarily was relieved of his duties last
July, will succeed Dr. James as president. Dr. James peti-

121

tioned the trustees last July for a leave of absence of one
year and one month, giving ill health as the reason. The leave
was granted as his physicians had ordered absolute rest from
all responsibilities, and for a time he went to Florida.

His letter of resignation which was received last month
by Robert F. Carr, president of the board of trustees reads in
part as follows: "I have wept useless tears at having to give
up, but it is of no use. I cannot go on and do justice to the
institution. I had been hoping against hope that my health
would improve, so I could again undertake the work from
which I was relieved last July.

"As the months have passed, the conviction that I sliould
not return to active service has deepened, mainly because I
feel that I have reached the age where I should retire from
active duty.

"I look forward with confidence to an even greater future
for the University. It has groAvn into the hearts of the people
of the State, and it will do so in a larger way in the years to
come. I know its affairs are in a critical condition because of
the inadequate income.

"Passing as I do from the active administration of the
institution, I can say, without fear that anj^ one will think me
personally interested, that the next legislature ought to
double its current income and provide a fund adequate for its
physical expansion."

Dr. James who has been up to the present time the only
native Illinoisan to head the institution, has been president of
the University of Illinois for fourteen years. He was the
fourth to hold the oiifice and succeeded Dr. Andrew S. Draper.

During his period of service he has seen the annual en-
rollment increase from 3,000 to approximately 9,000.

Dr. James was born in Jacksonville, Illinois, on May 21,
1855. During his educational career, he held positions at Ev-
anston High School, Model High School, Normal, Illinois,
"Wheaton School of Finance and Economics, University of
Pennsylvania, University of Chicago and Northwestern Uni-
versity, Evanston, Illinois.

He was president of Northwestern University from 1902
to 1904, and was appointed head of the University of Illinois
in 1905.

123

When the United States entered the war in 1917, he offered
the facilities of the University to the government. He di-
rected the establishment of schools for the manufacture of
warfare chemicals and military aeronautics and supervised
the organization of the University's S. A. T. C, which had an
enrollment of 3,033. President James was a member of the
Board of Trustees of the Illinois State Historical Library,
1897-1907. He is one of the founders of the Illinois State His-
torical Society, and has been a director of the Society since its
organization.

ILLINOIS WOMEN VOTE IN THE PREFERENTIAL

PRIMARY FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED

STATES, APRIL 13, 1920.

Illinois women who chose to do so voted at the presi-
dential preference primaries on April 13. Whether their vote
will be counted in with those cast by the men depends entirely
iipon whether the full suffrage federal constitutional amend-
ment is ratified and promulgated by the Secretary of State
at Washington before primarj^ da}'. The women's votes were
cast in separate ballot boxes and the count will be kept
apart from the tally of the male votes. It doesn't make any
real difference, at that, whether the suffrage amendment is
ratified. The Illinois i^rimary vote is purely advisory, the
women's ballots were cast and the result will be known, re-
gardless of what happens to the amendment, and the rival
presidential cam])s will be able to form their own conclusions
and make their claims when the totals are computed.

This was determined officially by Attorney-General
Brundage and formally announced in an opinion given to
Governor Frank 0. Lowden. Governor Lowden, in a letter to
Mr. Bi-undage, had suggested that such steps might be legally
taken and requested the attorney general to investigate the
proposition. Governor Lowden 's letter to Attorney General
Brundage said: "In view of the deep interest that is being
manifested in the suffrage movement and its far reaching ef-
fects, to say nothing of the rights of the thousands of women
in the State of Illinois, who ought to be entitled to express
their preference, I am addressing you on the subject of the
presidential preference primaries." He refers to the an-

123

nounced determination of the election commission in Chicago
to permit Cliicago women to vote and continued:

"I would be very glad indeed if the women of the State
outside of Cook county can be accorded the same pi'ivilege
that is to be given to the women of Cook county, and there-
fore would respectfully ask that you consider the question
whether or not ballots can be printed for the use of the women
in the 101 counties in the approaching primaries, without in-
validating the election. These ballots will be separate and
may be counted separately so tliat should there be any ques-
tion or should any contest develop, the legal results can be
easily obtained."

Attorney General Brundage's reply to Governor Lowden
follows: "In reply to your conimimication I beg to state
that, although I have previously rendered an opinion that
under the law of the State of Illinois women are not legally to
vote for delegates to the coming national party nominating
conventions, assiiming of course that the amendment to the
federal constitution giving universal suffrage to women shall
not have been ratified and a proclamation issued announcing
such ratification shall not have been made, I am of the opinion
that, under the conditions set forth in your letter, the easting
of ballots by women at the coming preferential |iresidential
primaries would not invalidate such primaries, it being un-
derstood that the ballots will be separate, counted separately,
and sealed and reported separately."

Edward J. Brundage.

Telegraphic notice went out to the 101 county clerks from
the office of Secretary of State Emmerson, directing them to
prepare the women's ballots as indicated in the attorney gen-
eral's opinion.

HOMAGE PAID TO THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM

LINCOLN BY THE TRADE UNIONISTS

OF INDIA.

Twenty thousand trade unionists in India paid tribute

to the memory of Abraham Lincoln, Thursday, April 29,

when their leader Bahman Pestonji Wadia, laid a wreath at

the foot of the Statue of the great emancipator in Lincoln

Park, Chicago.

124

"What wonderful words are those: 'Of- the people, for
the people, and by the people', exclaimed Wadia as he de-
posited the floral tribute.

"Lincoln was one of the greatest men the world will ever
know. Lincoln is greatly admired in Lidia by all of our peo-
ple. It was he who inspired me at the age of 22 to take up the
work for my people."

Mr. Wadia was the first man to organize trade unions
in India and is the leader in the home rule movement there.
He is a former member of the National Council of India. He
is now 38 years old. He came to the United States last Oc-
tober to represent the working people of India at the labor
conference in Washington. Since then he has been touring
the United States.

He arrived in Chicago on Sunday April 25. J. F. Cor-
nelius, Secretary of the city club was his guide and host.

"We have 20,000 trade unionists in India" he said. "This
body is not a fighting group such as the unions are in this coun-
try, but is made up of clubs and organizations pledged to aid
in settling all difficulties which may arise throughout the
country. I was sent to England by Edwin Samuel Montague,
commissioner to India, to appear before the house of lords
and the house of commons to report on conditions in India
and plead the cause of home rule."

Mr. Wadia has made such an effective impression on
parliament that India has been guaranteed she will be given
the same rights and privileges enjoyed by Canada, within the
next fifteen years, should her development progress as swiftly
as it has in the past. "As a result there is a great wave of
satisfaction and contentment spreading all over India" ex-
plained Mr. Wadia. "We are working as we have never
worked before."

Mr. Wadia expects to sail for India on May 25.

GEEAT STORM AT CHICAGO AND OTHER PLACES
IN NORTHERN ILLINOIS.
On Sunday, March 28, 1920, a wind storm of unusual
severity passed over the north part of the State spreading
destruction in its path. About one hundred persons were
killed and much damage was done to property. Ohio, Indiana

125

and Michigan also suffered from the stonn. Parts of Elgin,
Melrose Park, Maywood and Dunning were severely injured
by the storm.

The storm hit Elgin at 12:10 o'clock noon. Many per-
sons were in church at the time. The roofs of two churches
caved in and several persons were killed, and many injured.
These were the First Congregational church and the First
Baptist church of Elgiu. Other churches and congregations
suffered. The Chicago Health Department acted promptly in
immediately sending nurses and other forms of relief to the
stricken communities. Public funerals were held in some com-
munities for the victims of the storm. The Chicago Tribune
started a relief fund and other organizations gave aid. It is
estimated that two hundred and twentj'-five homes were de-
molished.

J. J. ZMRHAL, OF CHICAGO, TO REORGANIZE
CZECH SCHOOLS.

J. J. Zmrhal, princij^al of the Herzl School, has been
granted a leave of absence by the Chicago Board of Educa-
tion to help reorganize the educational system of Czecho-
slovakia. He will go to the new republic as a representative
of the National Educational Association.

The minister of education of Czecho-Slovakia requested
the government at Washington to lend Mr. Zmrhal 's services.
He expects to be gone aliout seven months, and will take ex-
hibits of the work of Chicago school children, as models for
the children of Czecho-Slovakia.

Dr. Adolph Mach, who has accepted the chair of dentistry
in the University of Ratislow, will accompany Mr. Zmrhal.

JULIA LATHROP TO AID CZECHS IN CHILD
WELFARE.

At the formal request of the Czecho-Slovakian govern-
ment. Miss Julia Lathrop of Chicago, head of the National
Child bureau, sailed for Prague, March 6, to aid the New
European republic in matters pertaining to child welfare
work. Miss Lathrop was accompanied by her sister, Mrs.
Almon G. Case of Rockford, Illinois. They will return July

126

1st. The formal invitation was brought by Jan Masaryk,
counsellor of legation and charge d'affaires of Czecho-Slova-
kia. It was approved by both the department of labor and
the State dei:)artment. Dr. Masaryk went to the University of
Chicago as exchange professor about ten years ago at the
request of Charles R. Crane.

CHICAGO SCULPTOR DEDICATES STATUETTE

TO WAR MOTHER OF SOLDIERS AND

SAILORS.

Sigvald Asbjornsen, Chicago sculptor, designer of the

statue "The Gold Star Mother," in honor of the mothers

whose sons were killed in the war, recently completed a

statuette called, "The Kiss" which he has dedicated to Mrs.

Mary Belle Spencer, public guardian of Cook County.

The Statuette, according to its designer, represents the
"Mother love of the world" and was dedicated to Mrs.
Spencer because during the war she acted as guardian of sev-
eral hundred soldiers and sailors. Mrs. Spencer posed for
"The Gold Star Mother."

ILLINOIS WOMAN APPOINTED AMERICAN RED
CROSS LEADER ON CONTINENT.

Miss Helen Scott Hay of Savannah, Illinois, formerly
chief nurse of the Red Cross Commission to the Balkans, has
been appointed Chief Nurse of the American Red Cross Com-
mission to Europe, according to a cablegram received at Red
Cross National headquarters in Washington.

Miss Hay, a graduate, and later superintendent of nurses
of the Illinois training school for nurses, Chicago, began her
Red Cross service in September, 1914, when she was placed
in charge of 126 Red Cross nurses who sailed on the relief
ship, "Red Cross" for active duty in Europe.

Miss Hay was decorated in 1915 by the Russian govern-
ment with the gold cross of Saint Anne. The King of Bul-
garia bestowed upon her the Bulgarian royal red cross. As
chief nurse of the Red Cross commission to Europe, Miss Hay
will have charge of all Red Cross nursing activities in Poland,
the Balkans, Czeeho-Slovakia and France.

127

MRS. MARY ANN POTTER CELEBRATES
HER 106TH BIRTHDAY.

Illinois' oldest woman and perliaps tlie eldest in the mid-
dle west, whose age can be substantiated, Mrs. Mary Ann
Potter of Dwight, Illinois, celebrated her one hundred and
sixth birthday anniversary Monday, February 23, 1920. She
was born in Essex, N. Y., February 23, 1814, and has lived
in Illinois since a small child. It is the unique distinction of
Mrs. Potter to have lived in Illinois since it was first admitted
to the union.

It is true of Mrs. Potter and perhaps of no other per-
son, that she has a personal knowledge of the five great wars
in which the United States was involved. Her grandfather
was a soldier of the Revolution, and was fond of telling his
granddaughter of his experiences with Washington and the
great militaiy leaders of 1776. Her father was a soldier of
the War of 1812, and he, too, told his daughter of his duties
in that conflict. Her husband was a soldier in the war with
Mexico. While during the Civil war, the Spanish-American
war, and also during the World war, she knit socks and made
bandages for the soldiers. Despite her advanced age Mrs.
Potter keeps in touch with public affairs and has voted at
every election since her sex was given the right of suffrage.

JUDGE JACOB R. CREIGHTON DIES IN
FAIRFIELD, ILLINOIS.
Judge Jacob R. Creighton died at his home in Fairfield,
Illinois, April 14, 1920. He was twice elected circuit judge in
the Second Judicial district and was on the appellate bench at
Springfield, Illinois, for one term. He was twice State's At-
toi-ney of Wayne county, Illinois. Was a member of the
Wayne county draft exemption board. He was 72 years old
and leaves a w^idow, two sons and a daughter.

INVENTOR OF WONDERFUL CLOCK DIES

IN AURORA, ILLINOIS.

William Blanford, an inventor, who worked a lifetime on

a clock which tells simultaneously the time in all parts of

the world and records atmospheric changes and astronomical

138

conditions, died at Aurora, Illinois, February 18, 1919, aged
82 years. The great timepiece automatically lights up at
night. It is driven by fifty pound weights. It has been in-
spected by scientists from all parts of the world. Aurora
women are raising $5,000 to buy the clock for the city.

AECHITECT OF WORLD'S FAIE, CHICAGO, DIES.
John Charles Olmsted, famous landscape architect, who
made the preliminary plans for the grounds of the World's
Fair and designed Chicago's south park system, died Tues-
day night, February 24th in Brookline, Mass. Mr. Olmsted
was bom in Switzerland in 1852, the son of American parents.
He was also the designer of the expositions at Seattle, Port-
land, Oregon, San Diego, Cal., and Winnepeg, Man. He
planned the landscape features for West Point Military Acad-
emy and hundreds of private homes, the park systems of Bos-
ton, Buffalo, Rochester, New York, Milwaukee and other
cities.

CHARLES FRANCIS BROWNE NOTED ARTIST
DIES IN EAST.

Charles Francis Browne, landscape painter and instruc-
tor in the Art Institute of Chicago and one of the best kno^vn
artists in the country, died March 30, 1920, at his mother's
home in Waltham, Massachusetts, where he was born in 1859.

Mr. Browne went abroad to study art when he was little
more than a boy, and returned in 1890, coming to Chicago.
He was the founder of "Brush and Pencil" and its editor,
president of the Chicago Society of Artists, member and di-
rector of the western Society of Artists, the Little Room, the
American Federation of Arts, and various National organiza-
tions.

Mr. Browne was stricken with paralysis last summer
while at the artists colony on Rock River. He spent the
autumn near Chicago, recovering somewhat, and went east
hopeful of full recovery.

Mr. Browne married the sister of Lorado Taft.

A sale of his paintings last winter conducted by friends,
headed by Ralph Clarkson, brought to Mr. Browne a fund of

129

$12,000. Funeral services were held in Waltham, Massa-
chusetts, April 1st.

MAEJORIE BENTON COOKE WRITER AND PLAY-
WRIGHT. DIBS IN MANILA.
A cablegram from Manila, April 26, announced the death
of Miss Marjorie Benton Cooke, author and playwright. She
had arrived in Manila only a few days before on a trip around
the world. The cablegram was received by her brother, Edson
Benton Cooke of 5324 Kimbark Avenue, Chicago.

Miss Cooke was well known in Chicago. She was born
there. For the last three years she had lived in New York.
Her most successful books of fiction were "Bambi" and "The
Dual Alliance."

130

Gifts of Books, Letters, Photographs and Manuscripts to the
Illinois State Historical Library and Society.

American Political Classics. By George Clark Sargent. Gift of the Lux

School of Industrial Training, San Francisco, Cal.
Army Signal School. Last course. The Langres Lingerer. France, No. 4,

1918 to Jan. 31, 1919. Gift of Lieut. Kaywin Kennedy, 1201 Broadway,

Normal Illinois.
Avery, Fairchild and Park Families of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and

Rhode Island. Pub. Hartford, Conn. 1919. Gift of Samuel Putnam Avery,

Hartford, Conn.
Brearley, Harry C. Time Telling through the Ages. By Harry C. Brearley,

N. Y. 1919. Gift of Robert H. Ingersoll & Bro., N. Y. City.
Catholic Beginnings in Kansas City, Missouri. Gift of Rev. Gilbert Garra-

han, S. J., Loyola University Press, Chicago.
Chicago Since 1837. By Gordon Best. Pub. by S. D. Childs & Co., 1917.

Gift of the Publisher.
Democratic Text Book, 1920. Gift of Mrs. Howard T. Willson, Virden, 111.
Eastman Zebina. Eight Years in a British Consulate. By Zebina Eastman.

Pub. Chicago, 1919. Gift of Mr. Sidney Corning Eastman, Chicago, 111.
Der Freiheitsbote for Illinois. I. May 6, 1840. Gift of Miss B. E. Rom-

bauer, 4311 W. Pine St., St. Louis, Mo.
Illinois State, Bureau County. Honor Roll Bureau County, Illinois World

War, 1917-1919. Gift of Mr. Clifford R. Trimble, Princeton, Illinois.
Illinois State. Mason County. Honor Book and Record, World War. Jones

Brothers, Publishers. 712 Federal St., Chicago. Gift of the Publishers.
Illinois State. Pike County, 111. Atlas Map of, by Andreas Lyter & Co.,

Davenport, Iowa, 1872.
Illinois State, Pike Co., 111. History of Pike County, Illinois, 1880. Chas. C.

Chapman & Co., Publishers, Chicago.
Illinois State, Pike Co., 111. Revised ordinances of the President and Trus-
tees of the Town of Griggsville, Illinois, 1878. Above three Pike County

items. Gifts of Mr. James A. Farrand of Griggsville, Illinois.
Illinois State, Sangamon County. Land warrant. Amos Lock. Sangamon

County. Dated 16th day of May, 1831. Signed by President Andrew

Jackson.
Land Warrant. Josiah Francis of Sangamon Co., dated 1st Day of Novem-
ber, 1839, signed by President Martin Van Buren.
Deed John Huston and wife to D. Newsom, Sangamon Co. Filed April 28,

1831.
Deed John Huston and wife to David Newsom and Samuel Huston, Sanga-
mon Co. Dated Feb. 28th, 1833.
Deed N. A. Ware to D. Newsom, Filed for Record, Sangamon Co., June 11,

1838.
Deed Samuel Huston and vrtfe to David Newsom, Sangamon Co. Dated

April 21, 1840.

131

James Higby Jun. and Martha Higby. To Mortgage. Francis Sanford,

Sept. 3, 1842.
Deed James L. Lamb and wife to Isaiah Francis. Sangamon Co. 24 May,

1848.
Deed Nathaniel A. Ware to David Newsom. Dated Sangamon Co., Nov. 10.

1849.
Deed Henry P. Cone and wife to Josiah Francis. Sangamon Co. Dated

Aug. 16, 1851.
Deed William S. Curry and wife to Josiah Francis. Sangamon Co., dated

Jan. 5, 1856. Above Sangamon County items. Gift of Hon. Clinton L.

Conkling, Springfield, 111.
Illinois State. Whiteside Co. Sketches of Cottonwood District No. 102.
Ustick Township Whiteside County. Illinois History. Record. Memories.
42 p. Morrisonville, III. The Sentinel Press, 1902. Gift of Mr. A. N. Abbott,

Morrisonville, 111.
Illinois State. Woman's Press Association Year Book. 1919-1920. Gift of

Mrs. Maude S. Evans, 5468 Ellis Ave., Chicago, Illinois.
Langres Lingerer (The) Army Signal School last Course. France, No. 4,

1918 to Jan. 31, 1919. Edited by Lt. Kaywin Kennedy, Signal Corps, A.

E. F. Gift of Lieut. Kaywin Kennedy, 1201 Broadway, Normal, Ills.
Minor, Manasseh. The Diary of Manasseh Minor of Stonington, Connecticut,

1697-1720. Published by Frank Denison Miner with the assistance of

Miss Hannah Miner, 1915. Privately printed. No. 104. Gift of Mrs.

Lewis H. Miner, Springfield, Illinois.
Morgan Family. Francis Morgan, an early Virginia Burgess, and some of

his descendants. By Annie Noble Sims, from the notes of Mr. William

Owen Nixon Scott. Savannah, Ga. 1920. Gift of Mrs. William Irvin-

Sims.
New York. Columbia University, Sexennial catalogue of Columbia Uni-
versity, N. Y. 1916. Gift of the University.
New York. Moravian Journals relating to Central New York, 1745-66. By

Rev. William M. Beauchamp.
New York. Onondaga Historical Association. Revolutionary soldiers of

Onondaga County, New York. By Rev. William M. Beauchamp. Gift of

the Onondaga Historical Association, Syracuse, N. Y.
Roosevelt, Theodore. Theodore Roosevelt's visit to Cheyenne, Wyoming,

1910. Gift of Wm. C. Deming, Tribune Co. Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Stead, William H. "The Trail of the Yankee." Manuscript copy of lecture

delivered by William H. Stead, 1901. Gift of Hon. Charles E. Woodward,

Ottawa, Illinois.
Stillwell, Leander. The Story of a common soldier or Army Life in the Civil

War. 1861-1865. Gift of Leander Stillwell, Erie, Kansas.
Wheeler, (Capt.) Erastus. Manuscript Record Book of Captain Erastus

Wheeler, 1846. Gift of Mrs. Charles H. Burton, Edwardsville, Illinois.

A grand-daughter of Captain Wheeler.

NECROLOGY

135

MISS NELLE SNYDER.

The funeral services of Miss Nelle Snyder were held at
the home of her father, Dr. J. P. Snvder, Tuesday afternoon,
Jan. 6, 1920, at 3 o'clock, Rev. C. E." French of the Church of
Christ was in charge. The services were opened by the read-
ing of the 23rd Psalm, followed by a prayer. Mrs. Matt Ya-
ple sang very beautifully and tenderly ''Perfect Day."

The minister presented the following:

In the passing of our friend and neighbor we are re-
minded of the words of another which may fitly describe the
going out of this life:

"So fades a summer cloud away;
So sink the gale when storms are o'er
So gently shuts the eye of day ;
So dies a wave along the shore."

A. L. Barpauld.

Nelle, the second daughter of Dr. John F. and Annie
Snyder, was born in Bolivar, Mo. She came with her parents
to this city where the most of her life has been spent. She at-
tended the public school and her life has been lived quietly
among the people she loved and who loved her. The depart-
ure was not unexpected. It came at 3 :45 a. m., Monday, Janu-
ary 5, 1920. She is survived by her father, a brother Fred
and two sisters, Adelle and Isabell at home.

"By a grave one learns what life i-eally is — that it is not
here, but elsewhere — that this is the exile, there is the home.
As we grow older the train of life goes faster and faster ;
those with whom we travel step out from station to station,
and our own station too soon will be marked. Death is like the
stereotyping process of a book in the hands of a printer when
the plates are made. It is like the fixing solution of a photo-
grapher. No changes, corrections or alterations can be made
in life's record. We must then say, as did Pilate, "What I
have written, I have written." John 19:22.

136

It is true that we make our own records. We write them
and no one can change them. Those who love us may be dis-
posed to place greater value before them than they contain,
those who do not care for us may be inclined to under estimate
these records of ours. It is a fine thing to know that He who
doeth all things well will give your record and my record a
true and just estimate.

Miss Nelle Snyder has lived her life in this community.
She loved her friends and was loved by them. She lived a
quiet life. She will be missed from her circle of friends and
in the home. She made several requests concerning her fun-
eral services and among them was that Dr. A. R. Lyles, in
whom she had the greatest confidence as a physician, man and
gentleman, be requested to speak at this service.

Dr. Lyles spoke in part as follows :

Because it was one of her last requests and because I
would not refuse to grant a last request of a friend, if it was
anything in the bounds of reason that I could do, is why I am
here.

What is death? is a question that has many times been
asked and many answers given. And what is life has as often
been asked, yet both remain a mystery. There are indeed very
few things we know with absolute certainty. We do know
however, that when death visits the home, there is always a
feeling of resentment and sometimes a very bitter feeling by
the friends and loved ones of the one to whom death pays his
respects. Because of home ties it is hard for us to look at
death from a philosophical point of view. Yet to my way of
thinking, I feel that when the body is broken down with physi-
cal infirmities and when there can be no pleasure or satisfac-
tion in living, then death should be welcomed as an angel of
mercy.

The beautiful life is what you and I admire, and that Miss
Nelle Snyder lived the beautiful life no one will deny. I have
known her for the last twenty years, and for the last few years
have known her intimately because of her affliction. Never
have I heard her complain or murmur because of her affliction,
and never did I attend any one in sickness who seemed to ap-
preciate what I tried to do for her so much as Miss Snyder.
Many people who are long sick become impatient and petu-

137

lant. Not so with her. So far as I could observe she seemed
to appreciate what her family did and everyone who Avaited on
her to the greatest extent. While she could not do many
things she would liked to have done on account of her affliction,
and while her life was a very quiet one, yet she dispensed sun-
shine to those with whom she came in contact. And how far
reaching that influence may be.

Yesterday she was a playful school girl. Today she lies
cold in death's embrace. Tomorrow you and I will join her
with that innumerable throng, in the undiscovered country
from w^hich no traveler returns. If you and I wield an influ-
ence it must be done today, for time is only today. Yesterday
and tomorrow belong to eternity.

"Our life is but a winter day,
It seems so quickly passed.
But if 'tis spent in wisdom's way,
We meet the end without dismay,
And death is sweet at last."
The floral offerings were beautiful. The pall bearers were
C. A. Gridley, Henry McDonald, Frank Eeding, William
Emerich, Matt Yaple and Henry Monroe. The interment was
in Wahiut Eidge Cemetery.

138

WILLIAM A. MEESE.

1856—1920.
By John H. Haubeeg.

William August Meese Avas born at Sheboygan, Wis., Feb.
1, 1856. His parents Mr. and Mrs. Henry B. Meese had come
to this country from Hanover, Germany. Two years after
the birth of William the family moved to Moline.

After completing the Moline Public school course Mr.
Meese attended Griswold college in Davenport, la., for a
year and then enrolled in Rock River seminary, now Mount
Morris college, from which he graduated in 1876. He then
took up the study of law at the University of Iowa, and was
admitted to the bar of Rock Island County in 1878.

Mr. Meese was a leading citizen of his community and of
the State of Illinois. He was a man of wide interests, but
the subjects in which his activities were best known were in
the fields of history, politics and law. He enjoyed an exten-
sive practice at law, and in addition to his general practice,
was attorney for the local Manufacturers Association; for
the Peoples Savings Bank & Trust Co. of Moline; of Deere
& Co., the C. M. & St. P. Railway; and for the Illinois & Mich,
igan Canal Board. He took unusual interest in young attor
neys, and a number of the prominent and successful lawyers
of Rock Island County received their first coaching in the
practice of their profession in Mr. Meese 's office. He had
great compassion for the boy inclined to be delinquent, and,
in the day when ' ' laAv was law, and crime was crime, whether
it was taking a banana from someone's stand or wagon", and
there were no probation laws, he defended scores of boys
when they were up for trial, never charging a cent for his ser-
vices. He was very successful in clearing the boys and re-
storing them to the "straight and narrow path". Parents
of incorrigible boys often brought their young recreants to
Mr. Meese 's office, where the sunmions to the boy to come into

139

his private oflSce, to receive a reprimand as only Mr. Meese
could give, was something which could not be lightly treated,
and often made lasting impressions for good.

Mr. Meese was widely recognized as a political factor.
His positive, dominant personality, coupled with unusual
ability; his judgment of human nature by which he picked
the coming leading men of his day, and his consistent
training with these leaders, brought to him an influence
enjoyed by 'but few politicians. He was not an office
seeker for himself but was content to aid in building the ca-
reers of some of Illinois' greatest statesmen.

The offices of public trust held by Mr. Meese were the
following: City attorney for Moline for six years; member
of the Moline Public Library Board ; Member of Moline Ceme-
tery Board, and member of the Boai'd of Trustees of the
Northern Illinois Normal School for four years.

Consti-uction of the Moline lock, giving Moline a harbor
on the Mississippi, was one of his great achievements in be-
half of his home city. As an officer of the Upper Mississippi
Improvement Association, Mr. Meese was in touch with af-
fairs pretaining to river navigation, and he gave much time
and energy to the encouragement of traffic on the Mississippi..
The appropriation for the Moline Lock came from congress
■as a result of the untiring efforts of Mr. Meese. He spent
much time in Washington in promoting this improvement.

Mr. Meese 's hobby was history. He possessed one of the
best private libraries on Illinois history to be found, as also
a collection of historic relics which were donated to the Eock
Island County Historical Society of which he was the founder.
He was the author of "Early Rock Island" which is an author-
ity on the early history of Eock Island County. At the time
of his death he had nearly completed a history of old Fort
Chartres. It is generally conceded that it was Mr. Meese 's
political influence which saved for posterity as a State park,
the old French fortification of Fort Chartres, and it was he
who, practically unaided, secured the appropriation of
$5,000.00 for the monument marking the site of Lieut. Camp-
bell's battle in 1814, with Black Hawk, at Campbell's Island.
He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Illinois
State Historical Society; an associate editor of the ''Journal"

140

of the Society, and a member of the Advisory Commission of
the Illinois State Historical Library.

Mr. Meese passed from this life Feb. 9, 1920. He left sur-
viving him, his widow, who as Miss Kittie Buxton, of Ma-
rengo, His., married the young attorney the first year of his
practice, in 1878, and was his faithful helpmeet throughout
his eventful career; also four daughters, Mrs. Frank Mauk
of Sterling, His. Mrs. Theodore Kolb of Chicago, Mrs. Benja-
min S. Bell and Mrs. Maud Newton of Moline, also nine grand-
children.

141

CHARLES F. GUNTHER.
1837—1920.

Charles Frederick Gtintlier, 83 years of age, pioneer ot
Chicago and noted collector of historical material, died Feb.
10, at his home, 3601 South Michigan avenue, Chicago, of
pneumonia.

Mr. Gunther was identified with the business and artistic
development of the city for many years. Coming here as a
traveling salesman in 1868, he opened a candy store at 125
South Clark street. When the Chicago fire destroyed his busi-
ness, he rebuilt larger quarters in what is now the McVicker
Theater building. He was the organizer of the Coliseum com-
pany and its first president.

Mr. Gunther was a Democrat and was active in politics.
He was alderman for the Second ward fi-om 1897 to 1901.
From 1901 to 1905 he was city treasurer. He once was a
candidate for governor.

As an art connoisseur Mr. Gunther was nationally known.
Several years ago he donated many of his paintings and his-
torical relics to the Chicago Historical society, of which he
was a director for twenty years. He gave many paintings to
the Y. M. C. A. hotel, and some of his finest works adoi'n the
walls of the South Shore Country club, to which they have
been loaned.

Mr. Gunther offered his entire art and historical collec-
tion to the city of Chicago, providing a fire-proof building was
erected for it. The city made no appropriation and in his will
he left it to his widow and son.

Mr. Gunther brought the famous Libby prison to Chicago.
It stood near the site of the present Coliseum, in South Wa-
bash avenue.

Mr. Gunther was a thirty-third degree Mason, a member
of Medinah Temple shrine. Other aflSliations were the Acad-
emy of Sciences, of which he was a trustee ; the Art institute,

142

Geographical association, Chicago Association of Commerce,
and Illinois Manufacturers association. His clubs were the
Iroquois, Union Leagiie, Illinois Athletic, Aero, Germania,
and Press club. Mr. Gunther was also a member of the Illi-
nois State Historical Society.

Mr. Gunther is survived by his widow, who was Miss
Jennie Burnell of Lima, Ind., and one son, Burnell. The fun-
eral was held Friday, Feb. 13, at 2 p. m. from the late home.
The sei*vices were conducted by Chevalier Bayard command-
ery. Interment was made in the family mausoleum at Rose-
hill cemetery, where a son. Whitman, is buried.

The honorary pall bearers were Orva G. Williams, Gen.
George M. Moiilton, George W. Warvelle, D. L. Streeter,
Amos J. Pettibone, William L. Sharp, Samuel H. Smith, Le
Roy D. Goddard, Henry C. Hackney, Robert M. Johnson, S.
0. Spring, George R. W. Clifford, Hon. Charles J. Vopicka,
Thomas M. Hoyne, Adlai T. Ewing, Carl T. Latham, Judge
John P. McGoorty, Clayton E. Crafts, Allen Streeter, and
George Beaumont.

143

PUBLICATIONS OF THE ILLINOIS STATE HISTORICAL LIBRARY

AND SOCIETY.
No. 1. 'A Bibliography of Newspapers published in Illinois prior to 1860.
Prepared by Edmund J. James, Ph. D., and Milo J. Loveless. 94 pp. 8 vo.
Springfield. 1899.

No. 2. •Information relating to the Territorial Laws of Illinois passed from
1809 to 1812. Prepared by Edmund J. James, Ph. D.. 15 pp. 8 vo. Springfield,
1899.

No. 3. 'The Territorial Records of Illinois. Edited by Edmund J. James,
Ph. D., 170 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1901.

No. 4. 'Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society for the year
1900. Edited by E. B. Greene, Ph. D., 55 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1900.

No. 5. •Alphabetical Catalogue of the Books, Manuscripts, Pictures and
Curios of the Illinois State Historical Library. Authors, Titles and Subjects.
Compiled by Jessie Palmer Weber. 363 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1900.

No. 6 to 24. 'Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society for the
years 1901-1918. (Nos. 6 to IS out of Print.)

•Illinois Historical Collections, "Vol. I. Edited by H. W. Beckwlth, President
of the Board of Trustees of the Illinois State Historical Library. 642 pp. 8 vo.
Springfield, 1903.

•Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. II. Virginia Series Vol. I. The Cahokla
Records, 1778-1790. Edited by Clarence Walworth Alvord. CLVI and 663 pp. 8
vo. Springfield, 1907.

•Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. III. Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858,
Lincoln Series. Vol. I. Edited by Edwin Erie Sparks, Ph. D. 627 pp. 8 vo.
Springfield, 1908.

•Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. IV. Executive Series. Vol. I. The
Governors' Letter Books, 1818-1834. Edited by Evarts Boutell Greene and
Clarence Walworth Alvord. XXXII and 317 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1909.

Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. V. Virginia Series, Vol. II, Kaskaskia
Records, 1778-1790. Edited by Clarence Walworth Alvord. L and 681 pp. 8 vo.
Springfield, 1909.

• Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. VI. Newspapers and Periodicals of Illi-
nois. 1814-1879. Revised and enlarged edition. Edited by Franklin William
Scott. CIV and 610 pp. 8 vo. Springfield. 1910.

•Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. VII. Executive Series, Vol. II. Gov-
ernors' Letter Books, 1840-1853. Edited by Evarts Boutell Greene and Charles
Manfred Thompson. CXVIII and 469 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1911.

•Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. VIII. Virginia Series, Vol. III. George
Rogers Clark Papers, 1771-17S1. Edited with introduction and notes by James
Alton James. CLXVII and 715 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1912.

•Illinois Historical Collections. Vol. IX. Bibliographical Series, Vol. II.
Travel and Description, 1765-1865. By Solon Justus Buck. 514 pp. 8 vo. Spring-
field, 1914.

Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. X. British Series, Vol. I, The Critical
Period, 1763-1765. Edited with introduction and notes by Clarence Walworth
Alvord and Clarence Edwin Carter. LVII and 597 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1915.

Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. XI. British Series, II. The New Regime.
1765-1767. Edited with introduction and notes by Clarence Walworth Alvord and
Clarence Edwin Carter. XXVIII and 700 pp, 8 vo. Springfield, 1916.

Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. XII. Bibliographical Series, Vol. III.
The County Archives of the State of Illinois. By Theodore Calvin Pease. CXLI
and 730 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1915.

•Bulletin of the Illinois State Historical Library, Vol. I, No. 1, September,
1905. Illinois in the Eighteenth Century. By Clarence Walworth Alvord. 38 pp.
8 vo. Springfield, 1905.

•Bulletin of the Illinois State Historical Library, Vol. I, No. 2. June 1, 1908.
Laws of the Territory of Illinois, 1809-1811. Edited by Clarence Walworth Al-
vord. 34 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1906.

•Circular Illinois State Historical Library, Vol. I. No. 1. November, 190B.

144

An Outline for the Study of Illinois State History. Complied by Jessie Palmer
Weber and Georgia L. Osborne. 94 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1905.

•Publication No. 18. List of Genealogical Works in the Illinois State His-
torical Library. Compiled by Georgia L. Osborne, 8 vo. Springfield, 1914.

•Publication No. 25. Supplement to Publication No. 18. A list of genealog-
ical works in the Illinois State Historical Library. Compiled by Georgia L.
Osborne. 8 vo.. Springfield. 1919.

Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. Vol. I, No. 1. April, 1908 to
Vol. XIII, No. I. April, 1920.

Journals out of print, Vols. I, II, III, IV. V, VI, VII, VIII, No. 1 of Vol IX,
No. 2 of Vol. X out of print.

•Out of print.

Vol. 13 JULY, 1920 No. 2

JOURNAL

OF THE

Illinois State
Historical Society

Published Quarterly by the

Illinois State Historical Society

Springfield, Illinois

Entered at Washington, D. C, as Second Class Matter under Act of Congress of July 16, 1894,

accepted for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in section 1103,

Act of October 3, 1917, authorized on July 3, 1918.

[Printed by authority of the State of Illinois. |

^Hrmted in the house of
^EVERI\'CHA US

JOURNAL

OF THE

ILLINOIS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Jessie Pai.mer Weber, Editor

Associate Editors :

Edward C. Page

Andrew Russel H. W. Clendenin

George W. Smith

OFFICEES OF THE SOCIETY.

President
Db. Otto L. Schmidt Chicago

First Vice President
Geokge a. Lawbence Galesburg

Second Vice President
L. Y. Shebmait Springfield

Third Vice President
EicHABD Yates Springfield

Fourth Vice President
Ensley Moobe Jacksonville

Directors
Edmund J. James, University of Illinois . . Urbana-Champaign

E. B. Gbeene, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Mbs. Jessie Palmee Webee Springfield

Charles H. Eammelkamp, President Illinois College

Jacksonville

Geobge W. Smith, Southern Illinois State Normal University

Carbondale

Oerin N. Cabteb Chicago

EicHAED V. Cabpenteb Bclvidcre

Edward C. Page, Northern Illinois State Normal School

DeKalb

Andbew Eussbl Jacksonville

Waltee Colyee Albion

James A. James, Northwestern University Evanston

H. W. Clendenin Springfield

CuNTON L. CoNKLiNG Springfield

John H. Hatjberg Eoek Island

Secretary and Treasurer
Mes. Jessie Palmee Webeb Springfield

Assistant Secretary
Miss Geoegia L. Osboene Springfield

Honorary Vice Presidents
The Presidents of Local Historical Societies

CONTENTS.

I. Officers of the Society V

II. An Appeal to the Historical Society and the Gen-
eral Public IX

III. Grace Wilbur Trout,

"Side-Lights on Illinois Suffrage History". . . . 145
IV. Charles Gilmer Gray,

"Lewis and Clark at the Mouth of Wood River" 180
V. The Visit of Colonel Richard M. Johnson to

Springfield. From State Register, May 26, 1843 192
VI. Charles Bradshaw,

"Greene County. Born One-Hundred Years

Ago" 210

VII. Pauline Aston Hawley,

"Park College and Its Founder" 224

VIII. John M. Whitehead,

Recollections of Lincoln and Douglas in Hills-

boro, Illinois 229

IX. Illinois Boundary, Surveyed by Hiram Rountree . 234

X. Editorials ] 240

Annual Meeting Illinois State Historical Society. 241

Illinois in the World War 244

Dr. David Kinley Elected to the Presidency of the

University of Illinois 245

Minor Notices 247

Gift of Books, Letters and Manuscripts to the Illi-
nois State Historical Library and Society 257

XL Necrology 259

Julia Austin Lord 261

James K. Blish 264

Otto C. Butz 267

Colostin D. Mvers 268

John W. Bunn 273

Merritt W. Pincknev 280

Philip S. Post '. 285

Col. D. C. Smith 286

XII. List of the Publications of the Illinois State His-
torical Library and Society 310

vii

AN APPEAL TO THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY AND
THE GENERAL PUBLIC.

Objects of Collection Desired by the Illinois State
Historical Library and Society.

(Members please read this letter.)

Books and pamphlets on American history, biography,
and genealogy, particularly those relating to the West ; works
on Indian tribes, and American archaeology and ethnology;
reports of societies and institutions of every kind, educational,
economic, social, political, cooperative, fraternal, statistical,
industrial, charitable ; scientific publications of states or socie-
ties ; books or pamphlets relating to all wars in which Illinois
has taken part, especially the collection of material relating to
the recent great war, and the wars with the Indians; pri-
vately printed works ; newspapers ; maps and charts ; engrav-
ings; photographs; autographs; coins; antiquities; encyclo-
pedias, dictionaries, and bibliographical works. Especially
do we desire —

EVEEYTHING EELATING TO ILLINOIS.

1. Every book or pamphlet on any subject relating to
Illinois, or any part of it ; also every book or pamphlet written
by an Illinois citizen, whether published in Illinois or else-
where; materials for Illinois history; old letters, journals.

2. Manuscripts; narratives of the pioneers of Illinois;
original papers on the early history and settlement of the
territory; adventures and conflicts during the early settle-
ment, the Indian troubles, or the great rebellion, or other
wars; biographies of the pioneers; prominent citizens and
public men of every county, either living or deceased, together
with their portraits and autographs; a sketch of the settle-
ments of every to%vnship, village and neighborhood in the
State, with the names of the first settlers. We solicit articles
on every subject connected with Illinois history.

3. City ordinances, proceedings of mayor and council;
reports of committees of council ; pamphlets or papers of any
kind printed by authority of the city; reports of boards of
trade and commercial associations; maps of cities and plats
of town sites or of additions thereto.

4. Pamphlets of all kinds; annual reports of societies;
sermons or addresses delivered in the State ; minutes of church
conventions, synods, or other ecclesiastical bodies of Illinois ;
political addresses; railroad reports; all such, whether pub-
lished in pamphlet or newspaper.

5. Catalogues and reports of colleges and other insti-
tutions of learning; annual or other reports of school boards,
school superintendents and school committees; educational
pamphlets, programs and papers of every kind, no matter
how small or apparently unimportant.

6. Copies of the earlier laws, journals and reports of our
territorial and State Legislatures; earlier Governors' mes-
sages and reports of State Officers ; reports of State charitable
and other State institutions.

7. Files of Illinois newspapers and magazines, especially
complete volumes of past years, or single numbers even. Pub-
lishers are earnestly requested to contribute their publications
regularly, all of which will be carefully preserved and bound.

8. Maps of the State, or of counties or toAvnships, of any
date; views and engravings of buildings or historic places;
drawings or photographs of scenery, paintings, portraits, etc.,
connected with Illinois history.

9. Curiosities of all kinds ; coins, medals, paintings ; por-
traits, engravings ; statuary ; war relics ; autograph letters of
distinguished persons, etc.

10. Facts illustrative of our Indian tribes — their history,
characteristics, religion, etc., sketches of prominent chiefs,
orators and warriors, together with contributions of Indian
weapons, costumes, ornaments, curiosities and implements;
also stone axes, spears, arrow heads, pottery, or other relics.

It is important that the work of collecting historical ma-
terial in regard to the part taken by Illinois in the great war
be done immediately, before important local material be lost
or destroyed.

In brief ever>i;hiiig that, by the most liberal construc-
tion, can illustrate the history of Illinois, its early settlement,
its progress, or present condition. All will be of interest to
succeeding generations. Contributions will be credited to the
donors in the published reports of the Library and Society,
and will be carefully preserved in the Statehouse as the prop-
erty of the State, for the use and benefit of the people for all
time.

Your attention is called to the important duty of collect-
ing and preserving everything relating to the part taken by
the State of Illinois in the great World War.

Communications or gifts may be addressed to the
Librarian and Secretary.

(Mrs.) Jessie Palmer Webeb.

SIDE LIGHTS ON ILLINOIS SUFFRAGE
HISTORY.

By Grace Wilbub Trout.

"When we look back to the early fifties of the last century
and contemplate the beginning of equal suffrage work in
Illinois, we realize the marvelous change in public sentiment
that has taken place since that time. A married woman in
those days had no jurisdiction over her own children, she
could not lay claim to her own wardrobe — about all that she
could call her own in those days was her soul, and some man
usually had a claim on that, although it had been solemnly
declared during a previous century by a learned council of
men that women really did possess souls.

The first local suffrage club in Illinois was organized
over a half century ago in Earlville in the early sixties, and a
few years later the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association was
founded in Chicago (in 1869). It was founded the same year
that the National American Woman Suffrage Association was
organized, and with which it has always been affiliated.

The Illinois Equal Suffrage Association was organized
by men as well as women. One of the early founders of the
Association was Judge Charles B. Waite, who was appointed
Associate Justice of Utah Territory by Abraham Lincoln.
His wife, Mrs. Catherine Van Valkenberg-Waite, was also one
of that first group that started the state suffrage movement in
Illinois, and associated with them were a number of other
eminent men and women. The work during those early years
was slow, educational work, the Association patiently and
persistently plodding forward toward its ultimate goal — full
political freedom for the women of Illinois.

My first active participation in suffrage work was as
President of the Chicago Political Equality League, to which
office I was elected in May, 1910.

146

The first active work undertaken under my administra-
tion as League President was to secure permission to have a
Suffrage Float in the Sane Fourth Parade to be held in Chi-
cago. There was some hesitation on the part of the men's
committee having this in charge as to whether an innovation
of this kind would be proper. Finally however, permission
was granted, ^\^.th the understanding that we were to pay the
committee $250.00 for the construction of the float. We had
no funds in the treasury for this purpose, so money had to be
raised — mostly by soliciting contributions from our friends
and neighbors in Oak Park. It was difficult also to secure
young ladies whose mothers would permit them to ride on a
Suffrage Float. All obstacles Avere finally overcome and the
Suffrage Float received more cheering in the procession than
any other feature of the parade, with the single exception of
the G. A. E. Veterans, A\dth whom it shared equal honors.
The Suffrage Float aroused interest in suffrage among people
who had never before considered the question seriously.

While planning for the Suffrage Float, preparations were
also being made for the first organized Suffrage Automobile
Tour ever undertaken in Illinois. As League President I was
asked by the State Board of the Illinois Equal Suffrage Asso-
ciation, to take charge of this experimental tour, which re-
quired about six weeks of preparatory work to insure its
success.

I visited the newspaper offices and was fortunate in
securing the co-operation of the press. The tour started on
Monday, July 11th, and the Sunday edition of the Chicago
Tribune the day before contained a full colored page of the
women in the autos, and nearly a half page more of reading
material about the tour. The Tribune sent two reporters
along on the trip, who rode vnth us in our auto, one to report
for the daily paper and one to report for the Sunday edition.
Other Chicago newspapers, the Examiner, Record Herald,
Post, and Journal, sent reporters by railroad and trolley, who
joined us at our various stopping places.

Through the kindness of one of our Oak Park neighbors,
Mr. Charles W. Stiger, the Winton Motor Company donated

147

the use of one of their finest seven passenger autos to carrj^ us
as far as Woodstock, furnishing also an expert chauffeur.
There we were met by an equally fine Stoddard Dayton car
which carried us to Naperville where Mr. Stiger's own car
was waiting to take us back to Chicago. At the meetings dur-
ing this week's tour, contributions were taken and enough
money was raised to pay all expenses of the trip and a balance
of over $100.00 was turned into the state treasury.

We spoke usually from the automobile, driving up into
some square or stopping on a prominent street corner which
had previously been advertised in the local papers and ar-
ranged for by the local conmiittees in the various towns
visited. It had been difficult, however, in many towns to secure
women who were willing to serve on these local committees,
the excuse usually given was that the people in their respec-
tive toA\Tis were not interested and did not care to hear about
suffrage.

I selected as speakers for the tour, Mrs. Catharine Waugh
McCulloeh, who spoke on suffrage from the legal standpoint,
Miss S. Grace Nicholes, a settlement worker, who spoke from
the laboring woman's standpoint, and Ella S. Stewart, State
President, who treated the subject from an international
aspect. I made the opening address at each meeting, covering
the subject in a general way, and introduced the speakers.
I, in turn, was presented to the various crowds by some
prominent local woman or man, and on several occasions by
the mayor of the town.

The to\vns visited were: Evanston, Highland Park,
Lake Forest, Waukegan, Grays Lake, McHenry, Woodstock,
Marengo, Belvidere, Sycamore, DeKalb, Geneva, Elgin,
Aurora, Naperville and Wheaton. In every one of these
towns the local newspapers gave front page stories about the
Suffrage Automobile Tour, which helped greatly in arousing
interest. The following conmients of the Chicago Tribune
show the success of the trip : ' ' Suffragists ' tour ends in tri-
umph . . . With mud-bespattered 'Votes for Women'
still flying, Mrs. Grace Wilbur Trout, leader of the Suffrage
automobile crusade, and her party of orators, returned late

148

yesterday afternoon. . . . Men and women cheered the
suffragists all the way in from their last stop at Wheaton to
the Fine Arts Building headquarters." The success of this
tour encouraged the Illinois Suffrage Association to go on
"v\ith this new phase of suffrage work, and similar tours were
conducted in other parts of the state.

The Chicago Pohtical Equality League had been organ-
ized by the Chicago Woman 's Club in 1894, and in May, 1910,
had only 143 members. We realized that for sixteen years
work this was too slow a growth in membership to bring
speedy success to the suffrage movement. As a consequence
in the summer of 1910 a strenuous campaign for new mem-
bers was instituted, and in the League Year Book published
in the fall, we had added 245 new names, nearly trebling our
membership.

The League had previously held its meetings in the rooms
of the Chicago Woman's Club, but in 1911 it had grown to
such proportions that more spacious quarters were needed,
and the Music Hall of the Fine Arts Building was secured as
a meeting place. On account of the League 's increased activi-
ties it was voted at the annual meeting on May 6, 1911, to
organize the Legislative, Propaganda, and Study Sections for
the purpose of carrying on different phases of the work, and
it was decided also to hold meetings four times a month in-
stead of once as heretofore.

My term of office as League President expired in May,
1912, and through the splendid co-operation of the League
members we had succeeded in raising our membership to over
1,000 members.

On October 2, 1912, at the State Convention held at Gales-
burg, Illinois, I was elected State President of the Ilhnois
Equal Suffrage Association. In addition to my League work
I had been serving as a member of the State Board of this
Association since October, 1910. Thus having had several
years of strenuous experience in suffrage work I desired
above all things to retire to private life, and in spite of the
urging of many suffragists, would not have accepted the state
presidency had it not been for the arguments advanced by one

149

of my sons. This son had been out in California during the
1911 suffrage campaign when the California women won their
liberty. He had seen every vicious interest lined up against
the women and had become convinced of the righteousness of
the cause. He said to me: "Mother, you ought to be willing
to do this work — to make any sacrifice if necessary. This is
not a work simply for women, but for humanity," and he
added, "you can do a work that no one else can do." He had
that blind faith that sons always have in their mothers — and
I listened to his advice.

This son, who had just reached his majority, had met
with a severe accident some years before, from which we
thought he had completely recovered, but just three weeks
after my election an unexpected summons came to him and he
passed on into that far country where the principles of equal-
ity and justice are forever established. So our work some-
times comes toward us out of the sunshine of life, sometimes
it comes toward us out of hfe's shadows, and all that we do
is not only for those who are here, and those who are coming
after us, Ijut is in memory of those who have gone on before.

Immediately after my election to the presidency we real-
ized the necessity of strengthening the organization work, for
in spite of all of the previous organization work, there were
many Senatorial districts in which there was no suffrage
organization of any kind, and as the time was short, compe-
tent women were immediately appointed in such districts to
see that their respective legislators were properly interviewed,
and to be ready to have letters and telegrams sent to Spring-
field when called for.

All of this work was difficult to accomplish without funds.
Our Board found the Association about $100.00 in debt, and
immediate solicitation of the friends of suffrage was begun
for the purpose of raising funds. After legislative work
began, however, this work was of paramount importance
and I had to call often upon Mr. Trout for funds with which
to finance the Springfield campaign.

During the previous session of the Springfield Legisla-
ture (in 1911) I had accompanied Mrs. McCulloch, who had

150

been in charge there of the suffrage legislative work for over
twenty years. At that time I was indignant at the way the
suffrage committee was treated. Some men who had always
believed in suffrage, were exceedingly kind, but no one re-
garded the matter as a serious legislative question which had
the sUghtest possibility of becoming a law. Mr. Homer Tice
had charge of the suffrage bill in 1911 in the House, and he
said that in consequence he became so unpopular that every
other bill he introduced in the Legislature during that session,
was also killed. It certainly required moral courage for an
Illinois Legislator to be an active suffragist at that time.

Having had this experience, as soon as I was elected to
the presidency of the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association I
sent for Mrs. Elizabeth K. Booth of Glencoe, the newly elected
Legislative Chairman, and we agreed upon a legislative
policy. This included a campaign without special trains, spe-
cial hearings, or spectacular activities of any kind at Spring-
field, as too much publicity during a legislative year is liable
to arouse also the activity of every opponent. It was decided
to initiate a quiet, educational campaign, and not to attack or
criticise those opposed to suffrage, because the only possible
way to succeed and secure sufficient votes to pass the measure
was to convert some of these so-called "opponents" into
friends. We agreed also that a card index, giving informa-
tion about every member of the Legislature, should be com-
piled. This plan of procedure was submitted to the State
Board at its regular meeting on November 8, 1912, and the
plan of campaign as outlined was approved and adopted by
the Board. The following women served on the State Board
at this time :

Officers :

President Grace Wilbur Trout

First Vice-President Miss Jane Addams

Second Vice-President Mrs. Joseph T. Bowen

Recording Secretary Miss Virginia Brooks

Corresponding Secretary. . .Mrs. Bertram W. Sippy

Treasurer Miss Jennie F. W. Johnson

Auditor Mrs. J. W. McGraw

151

Heads of Depaetments:

Organization Mrs. Mary R. Plummer

Press Miss Margaret Dobyne

Literature Dr. Anna E. Blount

Publicity Mrs. George S. Welles

Legislative Mrs. Sherman M. Booth

Church Mrs. H. M. Brown

Lecture Miss S. Grace Nicholes

Industrial Miss Mary McDowell

Woman's Journal Mrs. Lillian N. Brown

DlKECTOES :

Officers, Heads of Departments

Mrs. Elvira Downey Mrs. Charles A. Webster

Mrs. Ella S. Stewart

On December 19th a suffrage mass meeting was held in
Orchestra Hall in honor of the Board of Managers of the
National American Woman Suffrage Association which at
that time was holding a Board meeting in Chicago. The mass
meeting was given especially in honor of Miss Jane Addams
and Mrs. Joseph T. Bowen, who had both been elected to the
National Board at the National Convention held in November.
Miss Addams and Mrs. Bowen were also respectively First
and Second Vice-Presidents of the Illinois Equal Suffrage
Association. As State President I presided over this meet-
ing, and Dr. Anna Howard Shaw and other members of the
National Board addressed the audience.

As soon as the Legislature convened in January, 1913, an
immediate struggle developed over the speakership in the
House. There was a long and bitter deadlock before William
McKinley, a yomig Democrat from Chicago, was finally
elected Speaker. Then another struggle ensued over who
should represent Illinois in the United States Senate. During
these weeks of turmoil little could be accomplished in the way
of securing votes for the suffrage biU.

Before the Legislature had convened the Progressive
party had made plans to introduce as a party measure a care-

152

fully drafted woman's suffrage bill. Hearing about this Mrs.
Booth and I at once consulted with the Progressive leaders
and suggested that it would be far better to let the Illinois
Equal Suffrage Association introduce this measure than to
have it presented by any political party. The Progressives
realized the force of this suggestion and finally very kindly
agreed to let the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association take
their carefully drafted bill and have it introduced as an ab-
solutely non-partisan measure.

In the meantime, on February 10th, Mrs. Booth as Legis-
lative Chairman, was sent to Springfield to study the plats
and learn to recognize and call by name each member of the
Legislature. Mrs. Catherine Waugh McCulloch— who had de-
clined to serve as Legislative Chairman this year on account
of family duties — volunteered on this occasion to accompany
Mrs. Booth to Springfield. As this was Mrs. Booth's first
trip no action had as yet been taken to introduce the Presi-
dential and Municipal Suffrage Bill which had been drafted
by the Progressives and which we were to introduce. Mrs.
McCulloch, however, took with her a suffrage bill which she
had drafted and which she insisted upon having introduced
without one word being changed, which was done. It con-
tained however, in its second section, no blanket clause, but
specifically named the officers for whom women should be
allowed to vote, instead of being worded like the Progressive
draft which said: "Women shall be allowed to vote at such
elections for all offices and upon all questions and proposi-
tions submitted to a vote of the electors, except where the
Constitution provides as a qualification that the elector shall
be a male citizen of the United States." Mrs. Booth being
inexperienced in legislative work, and as Mrs. McCulloch was
a la\\^er, she believed this bill to be regular in form and to
cover the subject fully. When Mrs. Booth returned and re-
ported what had been done we were all very much distressed
that the plan agreed upon with the Progressives had not been
carried out and their bill introduced. In the interests of
harmony, and out of deference to Mrs. McCulloch 's long years
of service as Legislative Chairman, and some of us not being

153

so well versed in constitutional law then as we became later,
the matter was allowed to stand.

"We having failed to introduce the form of bill agreed
upon with the Progressives, they proceeded to introduce their
bill in both the House and Senate. This complicated matters
and made confusion but finally the Progressives in order to
help the suffrage cause, very graciously withdrew their bill.
Medill McCormick, one of the leading Progressives in the
Legislature, helped greatly in straightening out this tangle.
He was our faithful ally and rendered invaluable service dur-
ing the entire session. Other Progressives in the House who
also rendered important service were : John M. Curran and
Emil N. Zolla, both of Chicago, J. H. Jayne of Monmouth,
Charles H. Cannon of Forrest and Fayette S. Munro of
Highland Park.

While the State Legislative work was being taken care of
at Springfield we did everything possible to co-operate with
the National American Woman Suffrage Association in its
national work. On March 3rd, the day preceding President
Wilson's first inauguration at Washington, suffragists of the
various states were called to come to the National Capital
and take part in a suffrage parade. I was very proud to con-
duct 83 Ilhnois women to Washington. We left Chicago by
special train on March 1, 1913, and were extended every
courtesy by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. An elaborate
banquet was served on the train including fresh strawberries,
and every other delicacy, at only $1.00 a plate, and special
maids were provided to wait upon the suffragists.

This Washington parade and the brutal treatment ac-
corded the women along the line of march aroused the in-
dignation of the whole nation and converted many men to the
suffrage cause. It was openly asserted that if law-abiding
women, who had been given an official permit to have the
parade, could be so ill treated on the streets of the National
Capital, it was time that the legal status of women was
changed and women accorded the respect to which every loyal
American citizen is entitled. The police claimed they could
not control the jeering mob, who spat upon the women and

154

roughly handled many of them, but the next day the Inaugura-
tion Parade down the same streets was a manifestation of
perfect law and order and was in marked contrast to the dis-
graceful procedure of the day before. The Illinois women
wore a uniform regalia of cap and baldric and were headed by
a large band led by Mrs. George S. Welles as Drum Major.
We had a woman outrider, a young Mrs. Stewart recently
converted to the cause, who on a spirited horse helped keep
back the mob from our group. I led, carrying an American
flag, and our Illinois banner, too heavy for a woman, was
carried by Mr. Royal N. Allen, an ardent suffragist and one of
the railroad officials, who had our special suffrage train in
charge. Our women had been drilled to march and keep time,
and the discipline manifested seemed to affect the hoodlums
and our women were treated with more respect than the
majority of the marchers. In fact, the newspapers particu-
larly commended the order and system manifested by the
Illinois Division.

On March 10th I went to Springfield to consult with Gov-
ernor Edward F. Dunne, and secure if possible, his support
of the Presidential and Municipal Suffrage Bill. He agreed
to support this statutory suffrage bill if we would promise not
to introduce a suffrage measure which provided for a con-
stitutional amendment, as but one constitutional amendment
(according to Illinois law) could be introduced during a legis-
lative session, and this if introduced, would interfere with the
Initiative and Referendum Constitutional Amendment upon
which the Administration was concentrating its efforts. We
assured the Governor that we would not introduce a resolu-
tion for a constitutional suffrage amendment because we knew
we had no chance to pass such a resolution and we also wished
not to interfere with the Administration's legislative plans.
I remained in Springfield during the rest of the week to size
up the legislative situation.

The next week I went again to Springfield to attend the
meeting of the Senate Committee to which our suffrage bill
had been referred. Senator W. Duff Piercy was Chairman
and had offered to arrange a suffrage hearing if we wished it.

155

As we ascertained that a majority on this Committee were
friendly it seemed wiser not to arouse antagonism by having
public discussion on the suffrage question at this time, so
there was no hearing.

During the next two weeks I spent my time in visiting the
districts having Legislators not as yet converted to the suf-
frage cause. Mass meetings were held in some towns and
arranged for in many others.

The first week of April the Mississippi Valley Conference
of Suffragists was held at St. Louis and it seemed imperative
for me to attend. This large gathering of suffragists would
have been helpful to our legislative work in Springfield if
a prominent Illinois suffragist in her speech at the Confer-
ence, had not attacked the lawyers in the Illinois Legislature,
saying they were either crooks or failures in their profession,
or words to that effect. As there were many lawyers in both
the House and Senate whose votes we had to secure in order
to pass the suffrage measure, such attacks were most unfor-
tunate and made the work exceedingly difficult.

Another shock was in store for us, for on April 2nd, at
the request of a well known suffragist, a resolution providing
for a constitutional amendment was introduced. It had been
thoroughly explained to her that this was against the wishes
of the Governor and would be construed as a breach of faith
on our part, especially as she had been identified for
so many years with the suffrage legislative work. It was
hard for the Legislators and for the Governor to realize that
any suffragist, not a member of the lobby, nor a member of
the State Board, would proceed entirely on her own judgment.
At our State Board meeting held on April 8th Mrs. Joseph T.
Bowen, our First Vice-President, introduced a resolution
which was afterwards sent to Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCul-
loch, asking her, in the interest of the equal suffrage move-
ment in Illinois, to have this resolution withdrawn. It was
not -withdrawn, however, but was afterwards killed in Com-
mittee.

The work at Sprinfigeld became more and more difficult
and at times it seemed hopeless. No politician believed that

156

we had the slightest chance to pass the suffrage measure.
On April 7th I began attending the sessions of the Legislature
regularly.

During all of our work at Springfield we had splendid
co-operation from the press. Nearly every week end when we
returned to Chicago I made it a point to see one or more
managers of the newspapers and explain to them the difficul-
ties we were encountering, and asked them to publish an edi-
torial that would be helpful to the situation. By not appealing
too often to any one newspaper helpful articles Avere kept
coming along in some newspaper nearly every week. "We had
these various newspapers containing suffrage propaganda
folded so that the editorial (blue penciled) came on the out-
side. They were then placed on each Legislator's desk by a
boy engaged for that purpose. These editorials were a sur-
prise to the representatives of these various Chicago news-
papers who were at Springfield, for it seemed best to make it
appear that these editorials were spontaneous expressions of
sentiment. I remember one of the Legislators, unfriendly to
suffrage, who had tried a httle parliamentary trick which was
indirectly referred to in an editorial, growling about those
Chicago newspapers that attend to everybody's business but
their oAvn. He even complained to the Springfield representa-
tive of the newspaper, who of course declared his innocence,
because he knew nothing about it.

The Springfield papers also became exceedingly friendly
and pubhshed suffrage articles and editorials when we asked
for them.

Among the Chicago newspaper men whom I remember
with special gratitude at this time were : Mr. Keeley and Mr.
Beck of the Tribune, Mr. Chamberlain of the Record Herald,
Mr. Eastman and Mr. Finnegan of the Journal, Mr. Andrew
Lawrence and Mr. Victor Polachek of the Examiner, Mr.
Curley of the American, Mr. Shafer and Mr. Mason of the
Post and Mr. Frank Armstrong of the Daily News.

"VVe were deeply indebted at this time for the help given
us by Mr. Andrew J. Eedmond, a Chicago lawyer and Grand
Commander of the Knights Templar. I remember one in-

157

stance in particular when much pressure was being brought
to bear on Governor Dunne to prejudice him against the suf-
frage bill — I ^\4shed Mr. Redmond, who was a personal friend
of the Governor, to go do^vn to Springfield and help counter-
act this harmful influence. Mr. Redmond was a next door
neighbor of ours in Oak Park, and he had an important law
suit on that week, and in talking the matter over with Mr.
Trout we both decided it would be imposing upon the kindness
of a friend to ask him to leave his business and go at that
time. Mrs. Redmond, however, called me up by phone to ask
how things were going. She and her husband were both
deeply interested in having us win the fight. I told her the
facts but told her I was not going to ask Mr. Redmond, much
as we needed him, to go downi the coming week on account of
his business. When Mr. Trout took me to the Springfield
train, where I met Mrs. Booth, there on the platform with
his grip in hand, stood Mr. Redmond. My husband said at
once "why, I thought you were not going to ask him to go
this week." I explained that I hadn't, but told about my
conversation vnth Mrs. Redmond, and of course if his wife
wished to interfere with his business and send him to Spring-
field, I was not responsible. Mr. Redmond not only called
upon the Governor, but saw several down state Legislators
whom he knew well, and through his influence several very
important votes were secured.

I discovered at Springfield that we had just four classes
of Legislators — "wets" and "drys" and "dry -wets" and
"wet-drys." The "dry-wets" were men who voted for the
wet measures but never drank, themselves. The "wet-drys"
were those who voted for dry measures but imbibed freely
themselves. The "drys" warned us not to trust a single
"wet" and the "wets" on the other hand counseled us to take
no stock in those hypocritical "drys." As the measure could
not be passed without "wet" votes, our scheme of education
necessarily had to include ' ' wets ' ' as well as ' ' drys. ' '

I well remember of asking a certain "wet" Legislator
from a foreign section in Chicago if he would vote for the
suffrage bill. He looked surprised and said, "Don't you think
the women would vote out all of the saloons!" I answered

158

that I hoped so. He seemed dmnfounded by such frankness
and sort of gasped, '*yet you ask me, a 'wet,' to rote /or the
bill?" I then explained as best I could, that I supposed all
honest "wets" as well as "drys" felt the same way about the
saloons, that while we might differ on how to settle the tem-
perance question, still we all really hoped that those places
where men wasted their money and where boys and girls were
frequently lured to destruction, were done away with. He
looked a little dazed and said nothing. I of course thought
we had lost his vote, and was happily surprised the next
morning when this same man came to me with a very sober
face and said: "I thought and thought about what you said
all night, and I guess you are right — you can count my vote,"
and he kept his word.

The Presidential and Municipal Suffrage Bill was intro-
duced in the House by Representative Charles L. Scott (Dem.)
and in the Senate by Senator Hugh S. Magill (Rep.). It was
decided however, to let the suffrage bill lie quiescent in the
House and secure its passage first through the Senate.

After nearly three months of strenuous effort the bill
finally passed the Senate on May 7th by a vote of 29 yeas
(3 more than the required majority) to 15 nays.

It is doubtful whether we could have secured this favor-
able action had it not been for the good judgment and diplo-
macy of Senator Hugh S. Magill, who had charge of the bill
in the Senate. We also had the assistance on each and every
occasion of the Democratic Lieutenant Governor, Barratt
O'Hara, and among other Senators who helped and who de-
serve mention were: Martin B. Bailey, Albert C. Clark,
Michael H. Cleary, William A. Compton, Edward C Curtis,
Samuel A. Ettelson, Logan Hay, George W. Harris, Walter
Clyde Jones, Kent E. KeUer, Walter I, Manny and W. Duff
Piercy.

The day the bill passed the Senate I left Springfield im-
mediately to address a suffrage meeting to be held in Gales-
burg that evening, and the next day went to Monmouth where
another meeting was held. In both of these towns there was
a member of the House who was marked on the card index as

159

** doubtful." Both of these Legislators however, afterwards
through the influence of their respective constituents voted
for the suffrage measure. We soon discovered that there was
no class of people for whom a politician had so tender and
respectful a regard as for his voting constituents.

After I left Springfield that week Mrs. Booth remained to
see that the Suffrage Measure got safely over to the House.
In the meantime there was a mix-up and the suffrage bill was
taken by mistake directly to the Committee on Elections with-
out first being recommended to that Committee by the Speaker
of the House. There was an immediate outcry on the part of
the opponents of the measure at such irregular procedure.
It was very amusing to find that other Senate bills had been
put through in this way and no objections had been raised,
but it aroused fierce indignation with the suffrage bill, for the
men at Springfield said there had never been such opposition
to any other bill.

When I returned to Springfield the following week after
this mistake had been made, I learned a lesson about the in-
advisability of talking on elevators. I was on an elevator at
the Capitol when some of our legislative opponents, who were
in a facetious mood, got on, and one of them remarked, with
a sidelong glance at me, "How surprised some folks will be
later on, ' ' and laughed so jubilantly as I got off the elevator
that it made me thoughtful. After some meditation I decided
that there was an intention to put the suffrage bill into the
wrong Committee, and this surmise was afterwards proven
correct. We wished it to go into the Elections Committee,
where we had already ascertained we had sufiicient votes to
get it out with a favorable recommendation, however, if it
was ordered into the Judiciary Committee, it would fall into
the hands of the enemy and be killed forever. We worked
into the small hours of the night carefully making our plans
for the next day. In the meantime James A. Watson, one
of our faithful friends and Chairman of the Elections Com-
mittee, had returned the suffrage bill to Speaker McKinley,
and arrangements were made so that the Speaker could prop-
erly turn it over to the Elections Committee. When the morn-

160

ing session opened the bill was ordered to the Elections Com-
mittee before our opponents realized their little plot had been
frustrated. "We were not surprised, but they were.

It is doubtful whether we could have secured this favor-
able action mthout the powerful assistance of David E. Shan-
ahan. The latter on account of being from a foreign district
in Chicago, felt he could not vote for the suffrage bill, but he
gave us the benefit of his wise counsel. In fact to overcome
the pitfalls, which surround the passage of every bill upon
which there is a violent difference of opinion, I appealed to
the enemies of the measure to give the women of Illinois a
square deal. On account of his great influence with other
members I especially appealed to Mr. Lee O'Neil Browne, a
powerful Democratic leader and one of the best parliament-
arians in the House. Mr. Browne had always opposed suf-
frage legislation but he finally consented to let the bill, so far
as he was concerned, come up to Third Reading, so that it
could come out in the open and be voted up or do"\vn on its
merits, stating frankly that he would try to defeat the bill on
the floor of the House. It was this spirit of fair play among
the opponents of the measure as well as the loyalty of its
friends, that aftenvards made possible the great victorv of
1913.

During this time Mrs. Booth and I worked alone at
Springfield, but now we sent for Mrs. Antoinette Fuiik of
Chicago, who had been an active worker in the Progressive
Party, to come to Springfield and she arrived on May 13th.
Mrs. Funk was a lawyer, and her legal experience made her
services at this time very valuable. A week later, on May
20th, Mrs. Medill McCormick, with her new baby girl, moved
from Chicago to Springfield and we immediately enlisted her
services. Mrs. McCormick, as the daughter of the late Mark
Hanna, had inherited much of her father's keen interest in
politics and she was a welcome and most valuable addition to
our forces.

The suffrage bill was called up for Second Reading on
June 3rd. There was a most desperate attempt at this time
to amend, and if possible kill the measure, but it finally passed

161

on to Third Reading "without any changes — just as it had come
over from the Senate. During this period we found that we
were being shadowed by detectives, and we were on our guard
constantly and never talked over any plans when we were in
any public place.

The hope of the opposition now was to influence Speaker
McKinley and prevent the bill from coming up, and let it die,
as so many bills do die, on Third Reading. Sometimes bills
come up that many Legislators do not favor but to preserve
their good records they feel obliged to vote for, then after-
wards these Legislators appeal to the Speaker of the House
and ask him to save them by preventing it from ever coming
to a final vote. If he is adroit, this can be done mthout the
people as a whole kno^^ing what has happened to some of their
favorite measures. Mr. Edward D. Shurtleff said this was
done session after session when he was Speaker of the House
by the men who had promised to vote for the suffrage bill but
never wanted it under any circumstances to pass. The young
Speaker of the House looked worn and haggard during these
tiying days — he told me he had not been allowed to sleep for
many nights — that hundreds of men from Chicago and from
other parts of IlUnois had come down and begged him to
never let the suffrage bill come up for the final vote, and
threatened him -with pohtical oblivion if he did. He implored
me to let him know if there was any suffrage sentiment in
Illinois.

I immediately telephoned to Chicago to Margaret Dobyne,
our faithful Press Chairman, to send the call out for help all
over the State, asking for telegrams and letters to be sent at
once to Speaker McKinley asking him to bring up the suffrage
measure and have it voted upon. She called in Jennie F. W.
Johnson, the State Treasurer, Mrs. J. W. McGraw, and other
members of the Board and secured the assistance of Mrs.
Judith W. Loewenthal, Mrs. Charles L. Nagely, Mrs. L. Brac-
kett Bishop and other active suffragists to help in this work,
and wherever possible they reached nearby towns by tele-
phone.

162

In the meantime I also phoned Mrs. Harriette Taylor
Treadwell, President of the Chicago Political Equality-
League, to have Speaker McKinley called up by phone and
interviewed when he returned to Chicago that week, and to
also have letters and telegrams waiting for him when he re-
turned to Springfield. She organized the novel, and now
famous, telephone brigade, by means of which Speaker Mc-
Kinley was called up every 15 minutes by leading men as well
as women, both at his home and at his office from early Satur-
day morning until Monday evening, the days he spent in
Chicago. His mother, whom we entertained at a luncheon
after the bill had passed, said that it was simply one con-
tinuous ring at their house and that someone had to sit right
by the phone to answer the calls. Mrs. Treadwell was ably
assisted in this work by Mrs. James W. Morrison, President
of the Chicago Equal Suffrage Association, Mrs. jeane Wal-
lace Butler, a well known manufacturer and exporter, who ap-
pealed to business women, Mrs. Edward L. Stillman, an active
suffragist in the Rogers Park "Woman's Club, Miss Florence
King, President of the Woman's Association of Commerce,
Miss Mary Miller, President of Chicago Human Eights Asso-
ciation, Mrs. Charlotte Rhodus, President of the Woman's
Party of Cook County, Miss Belle Squire, President of the
No-Vote No-Tax League, and others.

When the Speaker reached Springfield Tuesday morning
there were thousands of letters and telegrams waiting for him
from every section of Illinois. He needed no further proof
that there was suffrage sentiment in Illinois, and acted ac-
cordingly. He announced that the suffrage bill would be
brought up for the final vote on June 11th. We immediately
got busy. We divided up our friends among the Legislators
and each man was personally interviewed by either Mrs.
Booth, Mrs. Funk, Mrs. McCormick, or myself.

As soon as the bill had passed the Senate we had reahzed
that vnth 153 members in the House, we would need help in
rounding up the "votes," so we immediately selected sixteen
House members whom we appointed as Captains, each Cap-
tain was given so many men to look after and see that these
men were in their seats whenever the suffrage bill came up

163

for consideration. The following Representatives served as
Captains, and rendered efficient service : William F. Burres,
John P. Devine, Norman C. Flagg, Frank Gillespie, William
A. Hubbard, Eoy D. Hunt, J. H. Jayne, W. C. Kane, Medill
McCormick, Charles E. Scott, Edward D. Shurtleff, Seymour
Stedman, Homer J. Tice, Francis E. Williamson, George H.
Wilson and Emil N. Zolla.

The latter part of the week before the bill was to be voted
upon I sent telegrams to every man who had promised to vote
for the bill in the House, asking him to be present if possible
on Tuesday morning as the suffrage bill was to be voted upon
Wednesday, June 11th, and we would feel safer to have our
friends on hand early.

When the morning of June 11th came there was sup-
pressed excitement at the Capitol. The Captains previously
requested to be on hand were there rounding up their men and
reporting if any were missing. We immediately called up
those who were not there, and if necessary, sent a cab after
them, which we had engaged for the day to be ready for any
emergency. There was one young man who was especially
efficient in the telephone booth so we engaged him to stay at
his post all day, so that we could secure quick telephone serv-
ice when needed.

We all wanted to be in the gallery where we could see
that last dramatic struggle, but it seemed to me wiser to have
the entrance of the House guarded to prevent any friendly
Legislators from leaving during roll call, and to prevent any
of our opponents from violating the law and entering the
House during the session. The husky door-keeper, who was
opposed to suffrage, could not be counted upon to keep out
anti-suffrage lobbyists if they desired to enter, consequently
I took up my post near the House door, which was the only
entrance left open that day, and was furnished a chair by the
man who conducted a cigar stand near the entrance. Mrs.
Booth and Mrs. McCormick sat in the gallery and checked off
the votes, and Mrs. Funk carried messages and instructions
and kept me advised of the developments in the House.
Shortly after the session opened the before mentioned door-

164

keeper came and very brusquely ordered me to go to the gal-
lery. Around the rotunda rail lounged a number of our op-
ponents, so I said I preferred to remain where I was. He
scowled his disapproval, and presently returned and said
that one of the House members who was an active
opponent of our measure, said if I did not go to the gal-
lery at once he would introduce and pass a resolution forc-
ing me to do so, I answered politely saying that^of course
the member was privileged to introduce any resolution he
desired, but in the meantime I would remain where I was.
The men around the rotunda rail were watching the whole
procedure and Avhen I still remained in spite of this warning
they regarded me mth unfriendly eyes. There was a lawyer
among them who longed to get inside that day, but he did not
like, even mth the backing of a friendly door-keeper, to
violate the law — that forbade any lobbyist to enter the House
after the session had convened — in my presence. The door-
keeper in reporting the incident afterwards said "I did not
dare touch her and march her up into the gallery where she
belonged." As a matter of fact any citizen of Hhnois had a
legal right to be where I was, if he so desired. In the mean-
time several friends becoming tired with the long discussions
and frequent roll calls, started to leave, but I persuaded them
in the interest of a great cause, to return. So while I could
only hear the sound of voices and from Mrs. Funk's reports
get some idea of the fight that was raging inside, I was glad
that I had remained as guardian of the door, for the main
all-important object after all was to pass the bill.

During this time a House member came rushing out and
said ""We have lost." I immediately sent the boy, whom we
had engaged for this purpose, for Mrs. Funk and told her
I knew there was a mistake for we had the votes and no men
had left the House. Shortly afterwards there was a deafen-
ing roar and several men rushed out and exclaimed "We
have won. The bill has passed." I remember of turning my
face to the wall and shedding a few quiet tears and when I
looked around there were about ten men who were all surrepti-
tiously wiping their eyes. The Presidential and Municipal

165

Suffrage Bill passed the House by the f ollomng vote : Yeas
83 (6 more than the required majority) to Nays 58.

It was a great victory. It was claimed there was plenty
of money at Springfield — a million dollars or more — ready
to be used to defeat the law, but not one Illinois Legislator
could be influenced to break his word. The bill was passed
through the co-operation and voting together of men from all
political parties, men of different religious faiths, and it was
dramatic on the floor of the House to have the fight for our
bill led by Edward D. Shurtleff, at that time leader of the
"wets" and George H. Wilson, leader of the ''drys. " It was
clearly demonstrated that we may as a people, differ on ques-
tions of creed, and honestly dift'er on questions of policy —
those differences of opinion are after all, purely matters of
birth and environment — but there are great fundamental prin-
ciples of right which touch human happiness and human life
upon which we all stand together.

In fact the men who voted for the suffrage bill at Spring-
field had become convinced that the suffrage bill was basic in
its nature and stood back of, and took precedence over all
other measures for philanthropy and reform. They realized
also that no state would even be approaching permanent
better conditions with a fundamental wrong at the core of its
Government, and that " in a Government of the people, by the
people, and for the people" — "people" could be interpreted
only as meaning women as well as men.

The Illinois Legislators in voting for the suffrage meas-
ure made themselves forever great — they gave Illinois a place
in history no other State can ever fill, for Illinois was the first
State east of the Mississippi and the first State even border-
ing the great father of waters, to break down the conservatism
of the great Middle West and give suffrage to its women. It
was claimed that there had been no event since the Civil War
of such far reaching national significance as the passage of
the suffrage bill in Illinois. This seemed like a prophecy, for
since that time Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, President of the
National American Woman Suffrage Association, said that
New York women never could have won their great suffrage

166

victory in 1917 if Illinois had not first opened the door in
1913, and the winning of suffrage in New York so added to
the political strength of the suffrage movement in Congress
that it made possible the passage of the Federal Suffrage
Amendment in 1919, so the work in Illinois was fundamental
and as vitally important to the women of the whole nation as
it was to the women of Illinois.

We vrero especially grateful when we had secured the
vote of Mr. Edward D. Shurtleff, always before opposed to
suffrage. He had been for years Speaker of the House, and
was acknowledged to be one of the most astute and ablest men
in Springfield. We went to him frequently for counsel, and
his practical knowledge of legislative procedure tided us over
many difficulties.

Charles L. Scott, who introduced the bill in the House,
deserves especial mention. Mr. Scott was liked by all of the
Legislators and he refused to introduce any other bills during
this session so that he could be free to devote all of his time
and energy in working for the passage of the suffrage bill.
Other men who helped, and some of whom stood out against
strong pressure of our opponents, were: John A. Atwood,
Joseph C. Blaha, Randolph Boyd, Lucas I. Butts, Thomas
Campbell, Franklin S. Catlin, John ]\L Curran, Israel Dud-
geon, Thomas H. Hollister, John Houston, F. E. J. Lloyd,
Thomas E. Lyon, William R. McCabe, Frank J. Ryan, James
A. Watson, and others.

Immediately after the passage of the suffrage bill terrific
pressure was brought to bear on Governor Dunne to get him
if possible to veto the measure. Our opponents tried to get
Attorney General Patrick J. Lucey, to declare the law uncon-
stitutional. We were given great assistance at this time by
Hiram Gilbert, a constitutional lawyer — a prominent Demo-
crat and powerful with the Administration, who declared the
suffrage law was constitutional.

We gave a banquet in the name of the Illinois Equal Suf-
frage Association, to the Illinois Legislators and their ^\'ives,
at the Leland Hotel on June 13th, and I remember at that

167

time some of the lobby objected to inviting those who had
voted against the measure, but this would have been bad
pohcy and it was finally decided that all must be invited, op-
ponents as well as friends, and telegrams were sent to suf-
fragists throughout the State, urging them to be present, and
many came. I asked Mrs. McCormick to take charge of this
banquet, which was a brilliant success. She had printed a roll
of honor which we asked all of the men who had voted for the
suffrage bill to sign. Governor Dunne was given an ovation
when he entered the banquet hall and he also signed the roll
of honor.

Immediately after the banquet Mrs. McCormick was sent
to Chicago to secure favorable opinions from able lawyers on
the constitutionality of the suffrage bill. These opinions she
forwarded to me and I delivered them personally to the Gov-
ernor. Mr. William L. O'Connell, a personal friend of Gov-
ernor Dunne, and a prominent Chicago Democrat was in
Springfield at this time and helped to counteract the work
being done by the enemies of suffrage. Margaret Haley was
also in Springfield and made many calls upon the Governor at
this time, urging him to sign the suffrage bill. The Governor
stood out against all opposition and signed the suffrage bill
on June 26th, and by so doing earned the everlasting grati-
tude of every man and woman in Illinois who stands for
human liberty. After the bill was signed the good news was
telegraphed all over the State and by previous arrangement
flags were raised simultaneously all over Illinois.

As there had been no time during this strenuous period
to raise funds, when we returned to Chicago we found the
State Treasury empty although the entire cost of the Spring-
field campaign, which lasted for over six months and included
railroad fare for the lobbyists to and from Springfield, in-
numerable telegrams, and long distance telephone calls, post-
age, stationery, printing, stenographic help, hotel bills and
incidentals, was only $1,567.26. We therefore very gratefully
accepted the offer of the Chicago Examiner to publish a suf-
frage edition of that paper, and netted as a result, about $15,-
000, for the suffrage cause, which included over $4,000 which

168

we paid out to local organizations that had secured adver-
tisements for the paper on a commission basis, as well as
several thousand dollars worth of furniture with which we
beautifully furnished the new suffrage headquarters which
were rented that fall in the Tower Building, Chicago.

I was again elected President of the Illinois Equal Suf-
frage Association at the Convention held in Peoria in October,
1913.

The enemies of suffrage were beginning to attack the con-
stitutionahty of the bill simultaneously in different towns
throughout the State, and finally suit was brought against the
Election Conmiissioners of Chicago which involved the con-
stitutionality of the suffrage law. We secured as our counsel
John J. Herrick, a recognized authority on constitutional law,
and Judge Charles S. Cutting. These two men by agreement
with the Election Commissioners took charge of the fight.
They consulted, however, with JNIr. Charles H. Mitchell, their
regular counsel as well as ^vith Judge Willard McEwen whom
the Commissioners engaged as special counsel on the case.
They also entered into counsel ^^dth Judge Isaiah T. Green-
acre, regular counsel for the Teachers' Federation and Joel
F. Longnecker, a young lawyer active in the Progressive
Party, both of whom donated their services. There was a hot
fight in the Supreme Court which lasted for many months,
the case being carried over from one temi of the Supreme
Court to the next without being decided.

During this time it was vitally necessary to demonstrate
public sentiment by getting as many women as possible to
vote at the municipal elections in April, so Civic Leagues were
organized in every city ward. Splendid work was done by
Mrs. Ida Darling Engeike, Ward Chairman for the Chicago
PoHtical Equality League, and all of the city work was di-
rected by Mrs. Edward L. Stewart, Chairman of organization
work for the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association. They called
upon all other organizations to help, and as a result over
200,000 women registered in Chicago alone, and thousands
more do"\vn state.

169

On May 2nd of this year (1914) we held the first large
suffrage parade ever given in Chicago. Governor Edward
F. Dunne with Carter H. Harrison, Mayor of Chicago, re-
viewed the procession and over 15,000 women marched down
Michigan Boulevard with hundreds of thousands of people
lining both sides of the way for over a mile and a half.

The General Federation was also going to hold its Bien-
ial Convention in Chicago in June and we realized, vnth our
suffrage bill hanging in the balance in the Supreme Court,
that it was most important to secure the passage of a suf-
frage resolution by the Federation.

I was appointed by the State Board to look after this
work, and through the help of local suffragists as well as
through the co-operation of the General Federation Board we
succeeded in securing the adoption of a suffrage resolution on
June 13th, and by an extraordinary coincidence on this same
day the Supreme Court of Illinois pronounced the suffrage
law constitutional. A banquet had already been planned by
the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association for that evening to be
held in the Gold Room of the Congress Hotel in honor of the
General Federation. All of these events came at an opportune
moment and this great banquet became historic in its signif-
icance and was transformed into a banquet of thanksgiving
where over a thousand women gave expression to their joy
over these two great victories. This banquet was ably man-
aged by Mrs. George A. Soden, assisted by Mrs. Edward L.
Stewart, Mrs. J. W. McGraw, Mrs. Charles A. Nagely, Mrs.
Judith W. Loewenthal, Mrs. Albert H. Schweizer, as well as
many others.

It was demonstrated that all of these events had changed
public sentiment in regard to the suffrage question. Congress
was in session this summer and Congressmen were unable to
fill their Chautauqua dates and I was asked to make suffrage
speeches at fifty Chautauquas covering nine states, filling
dates for a Democrat, the Honorable Champ Clark and for a
Republican, Senator Robert LaFollette, and afterwards filled
dates for William Jennings Bryan.

170

The State Equal Suffrage Convention was held in Chi-
cago in 1914 and I was again re-elected President.

When the Legislature convened in January, Mrs. J. W.
McGraw, the newly elected Legislative Chairman, and I went
to Springfield and attended every session of the Legislature
from January until it closed in June. A resolution was intro-
duced to repeal the suffrage law and several measures were
introduced to amend the law to give the women the right to
vote for some minor offices. We were advised by our la^vyers
to never amend the law, because to do so would involve the
whole question and bring on a fresh fight in the Supreme
Court in regard to the constitutionality of the law. We em-
ployed all the tactics used in 1913 and finally succeeded in
killing the repeal resolution in Committee and the other bills
during various stages of their progress. The Ilhnois suffrag-
ists fully realized the importance of preserving intact the
Presidential and Municipal Suffrage Bill passed by the Illi-
nois Legislature in 1913, because it was the first bill of the
kind ever passed in the United States, and established the
precedent which enabled many other states afterwards to pass
similar bills and the Presidential and Municipal Suffrage Bill
is called in other states "The Illinois Law." We were as-
sisted greatly during this session by Mr. Randolph Boyd in
the House and Senators Richard Barr and Edward Curtis in
the Senate, and by Harriet Stokes Thompson, President of
the Chicago Political Equality League, who rendered invalu-
able assistance by helping to counteract the wrong kind of
propaganda that w^as being carried on at this time and which
was most detrimental to our work at Springfield. It was hard
for some women, even suffragists, who did not understand the
poUtical situation and the dangers that threatened the suf-
frage law, to comprehend why the suffrage law could not be
amended any time, if by so doing, they could secure the right
to vote for even one more minor office. They did not realize
that in grasping for more we would be imperiling all.

In the fall of 1915 I positively declined the presidency
and Mrs. Harrison Monroe Bro^vn of Peoria was elected
President of the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association, and I
went to our home in Florida for a much needed rest.

171

I returned the following spring in time to raise some
money for the depleted treasury of the Illinois Equal Suf-
frage Association, and to help a little in Avhat is now kno^vn
as the famous "rainy day suffrage parade" which was held
while the National Republican Convention was in session in
Chicago in June, 1916. On this memorable occasion 5,000
women marched through the pouring rain over a mile do^vn
Michigan Boulevard and from there to the Coliseum where
the National Republican Convention was being held. I was
one of a committee of four representing every section of the
country whom Mrs. Catt selected to address the Platform
Committee of which Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massa-
chusetts was Chairman, and request that an equal suffrage
plank be incorporated into the National Platform of the Re-
publican Party. Just as Ave finished our plea the rain drenched
marchers made a dramatic climax by marching into the Coli-
seum where the hearing was being held, and in spite of the
opposition of Senator Lodge, a full suffrage plank was put in
the National Platform of the Republican Party. Among the
women who assisted in organizing this parade were: Mrs.
James Morrison, Mrs. Kellogg Fairbank, Mrs. Harriette
Taylor Treadwell, Miss Dora Earle, Mrs. J. W. ]\IcGraw, ]\Irs.
Edward L. Stewart, Mrs. Charles E. Nagely, Mrs. Judith
"Weil Loewenthal, Mrs. George A. Soden and other members
of the State Board.

As there was much important legislative work to be done
at the next session of the Legislature I was persuaded to
again accept the presidency of the Illinois Equal Suffrage
Association. There were clelegates present at this Conven-
tion from every section of Illinois, nnd after a thorough dis-
cussion the suffrage policy of the Illinois Equal Suffrage
Association for the ensuing year was adopted. The consensus
of opinion was that owing to the iron bound Constitution of
Illinois next to impossible to amend, the only practical way to
secure full suffrage for Illinois women by state action was
through the medium of a new Constitution.

The Citizens' Association, composed of some of the lead-
ing men of Chicago and of the State, had been working to

172

secure a new Constitution for over thirty years. They sent
Mr. Shelby M. Singleton, Secretary of the Association, to con-
sult with us about the work to be done at Springfield, and
asked us to take charge of the legislative work, as they said
our Association was the only Association in the State power-
ful enough and which all men trusted, to secure its adoption.

Mrs. McGraw and I went to Springfield at the beginning
of the 1916 session, and after a struggle that lasted over 10
weeks the Constitutional Convention Resolution was finally
passed. It would have been impossible to have passed the
resolution without the powerful support of Governor Lowden,
Lieutenant Governor Oglesby, Attorney General Brundage,
and other State officers as well as Senator Edward Curtis in
the Senate and Randolph Boyd in the House who rendered
especially efiicient service, and at the last moment Roger
Sullivan of Chicago threw his powerful influence in favo of
the resolution.

While this work was going on Mrs. Catharine "Waugh
McCulloch, who disagreed w^ith the policy of the Illinois Equal
Suffrage Association, organized what she called the "Suf-
frage Amendment Alliance ' ' and sent lobbyists to Springfield
to work for a direct suffrage amendment to the Constitution.
She had such an amendment introduced and it was defeated
in the Senate where it received only 6 votes and in the House
it was defeated by a vote of 100 Nays to 18 Yeas. This action
showed moral courage on the part of the Legislators because
many of those who voted against the measure had been the
loyal, valiant friends of suffrage for years. They beheved
as we all beheved — that a suffrage amendment, under the
difficult-to-be-amended Constitution of Illinois, would be
doomed to certain defeat if submitted to the men voters of the
State, and furthermore that a resolution calKng for a Con-
stitutional Convention had already passed and would ade-
quately take care of the suffrage question. In urging Mrs.
McCulloch to mthdraw this amendment, Governor Lowden
and other prominent suffragists pointed out to her that the
defeat of the suffrage amendment at the polls would mean
that a suffrage article would not be incorporated in a new

173

Constitution, for the members of the Constitutional Conven-
tion would feel dubious about incorporating an article in a
new Constitution that had just been defeated at the polls.

After the close of the Legislature the Illinois Equal Suf-
frage Association reaUzed that a state vnde campaign of
education would have to be instituted at once to insure a
favorable vote at the polls, so the Woman's Emergency
League was formed to raise a fund sufficient to establish
educational centers in every one of the 102 counties in Illinois.
Just as all plans were laid for this campaign the United States
entered the great world war, and immediateh' we women were
thrust into the rush of war work. I was appointed a member
of the Executive Committee of the Woman's Committee of
the State Council of National Defense, and every member of
our Board was immediately busy with Liberty Loan, Red
Cross and other war work.

While doing our war work we went on with the work of
the Woman's Emergency League. Held over a thousand
meetings that summer, arousing the people to a realization
that they must manifest not only national patriotism but State
patriotism by voting for a new Constitution in Illinois. On
account of the numerous Liberty Loan and Red Cross drives
we raised only about $15,000 but the educational work carried
on this summer was an important factor in later on winning
success at the polls. The money raised helped us to publish
large quantities of literature and to send many speakers out
into the State.

Among the women who rendered valuable service in the
Woman's Emergency League were: Mrs. George A. Soden,
First Vice-President of the IlHnois Equal Suffrage Associa-
tion, who rendered most efficient service as its Treasurer;
Mrs. Stella S. Jannotta, President of the Chicago Political
Equality League; Mrs. Albert Schweizer, Mrs. George S.
Haskell, Mrs. Julius Loeb, Mrs. Lyman A. Walton, Mrs. J. W.
McGraw, Mrs. Charles E. Nagely, Mrs. Judith W. Loewenthal,
Mrs. Mable Gilmore Reinecke, Mrs. Harriet Stokes Thomp-
son, Mrs. Anna Wallace Hunt, Mrs. Jeane Wallace Butler,
Miss Nellie CarUn, Mrs. Thomas McClelland, Mrs. Edward L.

174

Stewart, Mrs. Samuel Slade of Highland Park, Mrs. Charles
Wilmot and Mrs. Louis E. Yager, both of Oak Park, Miss
Catherine K. Porter of Freeport, Mrs. Blanche B. West of
Bushnell, Mrs. Mary E. Sykes of Monmouth, Mrs. E. B. Cool-
ley of Danville, Mrs. 0. P. Bourland of Pontiac, Mrs. William
Aleshire of Phonouth, Dr. Lucy Waite of Parkridge, Mrs.
Mary B. Busej' of Urbana, Mrs. E. B. Griffin of Grant Park,
Dr. M. D. Brown of DeKalb, Mrs. George Thomas Palmer of
Springfield and Mrs. Elizabeth Murray Shepherd of Elgin.

During this period of strenuous activity another attack
was made by the liquor interests on the constitutionality of
the suffrage law, and the case brought before the Supreme
Court. We engaged Mr. James G. Skinner, an able la^^7'er
who had acted as Assistant Corporation Counsel under a pre-
vious city administration. He prepared an elaborate brief
covering all disputed points and won the case, and the wom-
an's suffrage law was again pronounced constitutional in
December, 1917.

At the State Convention held in Danville I was again re-
elected President. The Illinois Equal Suffrage Association
now had organizations in every Senatorial and Congressional
district A\ith an affiliated membership of over 200,000 women.

After this election I was soon called to Washington by
Mrs. Catt to work for the passage of the Federal Suffrage
Amendment, and spent many months in Washington during
this year. I was very fortunate while there to have a per-
sonal interview with President Wilson which lasted for fifty-
five minutes and added my plea to all of the other pleas that
had been made, urging him to personally address the Senate
on the question of the Federal Suffrage Amendment.

In the meantime Mrs. J. W. McGraw ably directed the
educational and organization work of the Association. We
were working to secure the adoption of the Constitutional
Convention Resolution at the polls and Mrs. McGraw secured
the co-operation of Mrs. Reed, Legislative Chairman of the
Illinois Federation of Women's Clubs, and they together ap-

175

pointed two women in each Congressional district to organize
the educational work in their respective districts.

During this time Mrs. McGraw and I prepared and pub-
lished a leaflet entitled "Why Ilhnois Needs a New Consti-
tution" which was mdely circulated among men's as well
as women's organizations.

In the spring of 1918 Governor Lowden appointed Judge
Orrin N. Carter of the Supreme Court as Chairman of a state
wide committee that worked in co-operation with the state
wide committee of women we had already appointed.

In 1918 the State Equal Suffrage Convention was held in
the latter part of October in Chicago and I was re-eloctod
President. This Convention was planned as a climax to the
10 day whirlwind campaign for the Constitutional Conven-
tion Eesolution that was being held throughout the State. A
feature of this campaign was the Constitutional Convention
Tag T)aj. This tag day did not include the payment of any
money for the privilege of being tagged, and consequently
was a pleasant surprise to the people. Each man was given
a tag who promised to vote for the Constitutional Convention
Resolution. Mrs. Albert H. Sehweizer was in charge of the
Tag Day in Chicago, as well as the rest of the city campaign.

As a result of all of this labor the Constitutional Conven-
tion Resolution was passed at the general election on Novem-
ber 4th. Total vote cast 975,545. In favor of Constitution
562,012. Majority of all votes cast at the election for a new
Constitution 74,239.

In 1919 the delegates to the Constitutional Convention
were elected and it convened at Springfield in January', 1920.
One of its first acts was to adopt an article giving full suf-
frage to Illinois women to be incorporated in the new Con-
stitution.

I was again called to Washington in the early part of
1919 to help round up votes for the Federal Suffrage Amend-
ment. When it finally passed the Senate in June, 1919, word

176

was telegraphed to me while I was in Peoria where I had gone
to address the State Convention of the Illinois Federation of
Women's Clubs. Wild enthusiasm prevailed among the
women when they learned the news. I was literally showered
Avith peonies from the banquet tables and the women acted as
though it was a suifrage jubilee convention.

Mrs. McGraw and I now immediately hurried to Spring-
field where we had already made arrangements for the rati-
fication of the Federal Suffrage Amendment, and the Illinois
Legislature ratified the Federal Suifrage Amendment on June
10th. The vote in the Senate was as follows: Ayes 46, and
no votes against the measure. The vote in the House was
ayes 135, nays 3.

A minor mistake was made in the first certified resolu-
tion sent from the Secretary of State's office at Washington
to the Governor of Illinois. To prevent the possibility of any
legal quibbling. Governor Lowden telegraphed the Secretary
of State at Washington to send on at once a corrected certi-
fied copy of the resolution. This was done and the ratification
was reaffirmed by the Illinois Legislature on June 17th, the
vote in the Senate then being: Ayes 49, nays none, and the
vote in the House was ayes 134, nays 4.

Owing to a misunderstanding of the facts in the case for
a short time there was some controversy as to whether Illinois
was entitled to first place as being the first state to ratify the
Federal amendment. An exhaustive study of the case was
made by Attorney General Brundage and a brief prepared
showing that the mistake in the first certified papers did not
affect the legality of the ratification on June 10th, as the mis-
take was made in copjang the introductory resolution, and not
in the laAv itself. The opinion of the Attorney General was
afterwards accepted by the Secretaiy of State's office at
Washington. So Illinois, the first State east of the Missis-
sippi to grant suffrage to its women, was also the first State
to ratify the Federal Suffrage Amendment.

In celebration of this great Illinois victory a Jubilee Ban-
quet was held on June 24th at the Hotel LaSalle. I presided

177

over the banquet and the guests of honor were Governor and
Mrs. Lowden. Among the speakers were the leading suffrag-
ists of the State as well as the Governor, Lieutenant Governor
Oglesby, and prominent members of the State Legislature.

In October, 1919, the State Equal Suffrage Convention
was held in Chicago and I was re-elected President for the
seventh time. Women were present from every section of
IlHnois. It was voted at this Convention to continue the
work for the speedy ratification of the Federal Suffrage
Amendment, and if this failed to succeed in 1920, to work for
a full suffrage article in the new Illinois Constitution when
it was submitted to the men voters of the State.

At the National Convention held in St. Louis the early
part of 1919 I had invited, in the name of the Illinois Equal
Suffrage Association, the National American Woman Suf-
frage Association to hold its next Annual Convention in Chi-
cago. This invitation was accepted and the National Conven-
tion was to convene in Februaiy, 1920. Immediately after the
State Convention, plans were formulated by our State Board
to take care of this Convention. We called together represent-
atives of the Chicago Political Equality League, Chicago
Equal Suffrage Association, Seventh Ward Auxiliary of the
State Association, The Evanston Political Equality League,
The Federation of Chicago Women's Clubs, The North End
Woman's Club, Chicago Woman's Club, The Oak Park Suf-
frage Club and other local organizations. I was elected
Chainnan and Mrs, McGraw Vice-Chairman of the Committee
having this Convention in charge. Different organizations
were appointed to take charge of different days of the Con-
vention and different phases of the work. In addition to the
work necessary for the preparation of the Convention proper,
there were also five Conferences to be held of the different
departments of the League of Woman Voters which had been
tentatively organized at St. Louis the year before. We en-
gaged the Gold Room of the Congress Hotel for the General
Convention Hall and the EHzabethan Room was engaged also
for the entire Convention, as well as many other rooms to be
used for committee meetings, press and conference rooms.

178

Mrs. McGraw watched every detail and rendered especially
valuable service. The Chairman of the Finance Committee,
Mrs. Samuel Slade, also deserves especial mention, for she,
^vith the help of her Committee raised the funds %\'ith which
to defray all expenses of the Convention.

The ratification by the States of the Federal Suffrage
Amendment was progressing so rapidly that this Convention
was called the "Jubilee Convention" and the National Ameri-
can Woman Suffrage Association having practically com-
pleted its work — the full enfranchisement of the women of
the United States — disbanded, and its members united with
the League of Woman Voters formerly organized at this Con-
vention. In the meantime it was voted that the Board of
Directors of the National American Woman Suffrage Asso-
ciation remain intact until the thirty-sixth state should ratify.

The Convention was said to be the most brilliant Conven-
tion ever held in the history of the national association.
Prominent women from every section of the United States
were present and I was gratified to have the hotel manage-
ment of the Congress Hotel, which is made the headquarters
for so man}' conventions, tell me it was the best managed and
most orderly convention ever held in their hotel.

The Convention was held in February and Mrs. Catt
hoped we would secure the thirty-sixth state within a month,
but anti-suffrage forces were active and the ratification was
delayed. In April she telegraphed me that a campaign was to
be launched in Connecticut where every state was to be repre-
sented, and she mshed me to represent Illinois; the object
of this campaign being to persuade if possible, the Connecticut
Governor to call a special session for the purpose of ratifying
the suffrage amendment, which in spite of this demonstration
of national sentiment, he refused to do.

As it was being used as an anti-suffrage argument that
the women in many suffrage states failed to exercise their full
franchise rights it seemed best on my return from Connecticut
to call a Board meeting at once and make preparations for a
state wide campaign among Illinois women and get as many

179

of them as possible to go to the polls in November and par-
ticipate in the Presidential election. An "Every woman at
the polls Committee" was organized for the purpose and
women were appointed in the down state to^vns and cities to
take care of the work in their various localities and a large
committee was organized in Chicago. I was elected Chairman
of the state wide committee, Mrs. J. W. McGraw, State Vice-
Chairman, and Mrs. Albert H. Schweizer, a member of the
State Board was appointed Chicago Chairman. The Chicago
Political Equality League and the Woman's City Club took
an active part in this campaign and the club rooms of the
latter were selected as the headquarters of the Chicago Com-
mittee and the State headquarters of the Illinois Equal Suf-
frage Association for the Executive Committee rooms. This
work was all preparatory to a final drive which was to im-
mediately precede the fall election.

In the midst of the summer, on August 18th, the joyful
news came that Tennessee was the thirty-sixth state to ratifj^
the Federal Suffrage Amendment. The Illinois Equal Suf-
frage Association immediately sent out a call for its State
Convention to be held in September in Chicago. At this Con-
vention the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association, its work
finished and Illinois women now free, disbanded, and its mem-
bers formed the Illinois League of Women Voters, affiliated
with the National League of Women Voters and prepared to
go on Avith the great patriotic work of arousing women to a
realization that it is as vitally important to vote for one's
country as it is to fight for one's country.*

•The records of the Illinois Equal Suffrage League have been deposited in the
State Historical Library at Springfield.

LEWIS AND CLARK AT THE MOUTH OF WOOD
RIVER— AN HISTORIC SPOT.

Chakles Gilmer Gbay.

A certain spot becomes famous by reason of its having
been the birthplace or home of some great man, or the scene
of some noted accomplishment. Thus, the world holds in
honor the birthplace or home of a Gladstone, a Grant, a
Lincoln ; it makes its pilgrimages to a Bunker Hill, a Gettys-
burg, a Chickamauga ; all celebrated battle-fields for freedom.

With this fact in view it may be truthfully said that there
is a spot on Ilhnois soil, heretofore too much neglected, which
should have public recognition as the place at which centered
and from which started out an exploring expedition which
opened up to civiHzation a territory of boundless extent and
inconceivable riches.

This site is at the mouth of Wood river on the Illinois
side opposite the mouth of the Missouri at its entrance into
the Mississippi river.

In the Lems and Clark journals it is related that the
expeditionary party under Lewis and Clark, to explore the
then unkno^^ai country between the Mississippi river and the
Pacific coast, gathered together in the fall and early winter of
1803 and spent the winter at the mouth of Wood river in
preparation for the expedition which actually made the start
May 14, 1804.

At this point then, on Illinois soil in early November,
1803, were gathered most of the men comprising the expedi-
tionary party. The main body with Lieutenant Clark in com-
mand had come by boat from Pittsburg bringing with them
the necessary stores. Captain Lewis having been necessarily
detained, had come later by boat as far as the falls of the
Ohio — the present Louisville, Ky., and thence by land, across
southern Illinois via Kaskaskia and Cahokia, arriving in

181

December. It may be well here to show as briefly as possible
what led to the sending out of the expedition.

Thomas Jefferson was now President of the United
States, his administration having come into rule, March 4,
1801. For years he had been much interested in this unknoAvn
western country. In fact, once or t^vice he had joined in a
private way, in plans to gain further knowledge concerning
it, but nothing of value had come of either venture. But now,
since he was president there were added reasons why a fuller
knowledge of this country should be had, and his position the
better enabled him to carry them into execution.

In a message to Congress with date January 18, 1803,
Jefferson proposed, that a party of ten or twelve chosen men
under an intelhgent officer be sent into this country, even as
far as the western ocean, with view to the establishment of
trading posts for opening up commerce with this country.
At his request, Congress made a small appropriation towards
carrying out the plan. So, it came about — the appropriation
having been made, that the expedition — the most important
in its results of any in American history, was really to be
made.

Later, as the idea grew in the public mind, and its im-
portance became more evident, the expedition was planned on
a larger scale wdth broadened objects and a larger number of
men to assist in their attainment, the added expense being-
covered by a larger appropriation.

And right here, it may be well to take a glance at som.e
things that were happening in Europe since these happenings
were to have so much to do with the forwarding of President
Jefferson's plans — both for gaining an outlet via the Missis-
sippi to the sea and the starting forward of the exploring
party to the ocean.

Napoleon Bonaparte ^\dth his victorious armies had at
this time overrun almost the whole of Europe, and was look-
ing for a wider field for his ambitious designs ; so, for a time
he had dreams of further conquests in America. From the
time of La Salle to 1763, France had been the predominant

182

figure in America, but with the fall of Quebec in that year,
the sceptre had fallen into other hands. Napoleon's ambition
was to regain America for France. He conceived that he
could easily gain a foothold at the mouth of the Mississippi
from the Spanish, either by purchase or force of arms, then,
could make conquest of further Spanish territory at his pleas-
ure. This accomplished, he could by force if necessary", gain
more territory from the United States up the river and into
the interior.

Such were his dreams, and he was making considerable
headway in turning his dreams into realities. History records
that in 1801 by secret treaty he actually did make purchase
from Spain of the Louisiana province, thus gaining much
more than a foothold at the mouth of the Mississippi, and
was making further plans to carry out his schemes ; but, his
plans were brought to a sudden halt, as will appear a Uttle
later.

About this time there Avas much unrest among the set-
tlers of the Kentucky and Tennessee regions caused by the
purchase of the Louisiana pro\dnce b}^ France and the outlet
to the sea by way of the Mississippi passing into their hands.

With a view to gain for this southwestern country this
outlet to the sea. Congress had placed the sum of two million
dollars at the disposal of President Jefferson, for the pur-
chase from France of New Orleans and lands lying along the
Mississippi river to its mouth, and our envoy at Paris, Robert
Livingston, had for months been trying but with scant success,
to close the deal. Seeing how difficult it was. President Jeffer-
son had sent James Monroe as a special envoy to assist in the
negotiations. He arrived in Paris just at the time when
Napoleon's plans had been brought to a sudden halt.

Just at this point, much to the surprise of our envoys,
Livingston and Monroe, the astonishing proposition was put
up to them by the French envoy, Marbois, not only to pur-
chase New Orleans and close lying lands for two million
dollars as had been proposed; but the entire province of
Louisiana for fifteen millions ; and the proposition was for
prompt acceptance.

183

There was no ocean cable in those days, and travel by
sea was slow. Without authority of either the President or
Congress, or without any means of advising with either, it
was up to our envoys to accept or reject. They like brave
men and true patriots, accepted.

This sudden change in policy on the part of the French
was made plain sometime later, and was this — at this time a
war between France and England became a certainty. Na-
poleon realized he must centralize all his forces on European
soil; also he must have money to carry on the wars with
England and other enemies. These considerations brought
him to a quick decision to sell to the United States, not only
New Orleans and the small strip of land reaching to the gulf,
but all the Louisiana province which he had recently acquired
from Spain. Having reached this conclusion he gave specific
instructions to his minister of finance, Marbois, to negotiate
the affair with the envoys of the United States closing with
the remark, "I require a great deal of money for the war."
Not only had Marbois advised against this, but his two
brothers, Joseph and Lucien as well, all mthout avail.

Of the importance of these two events, the exploring ex-
pedition and the purchase of the Louisiana province, Henry
Adams, a very conservative historian says, "Jefferson is
chiefly remembered as the author of the Declaration of Inde-
pendence ; but he was also a leading figure in two later affairs,
which as the years pass seem destined to contribute almost
equally to his fame. These were the purchase of Louisiana
province and its later exploration by Lewis and Clark; the
one consummated, the other initiated in 1803. ' '

The importance of these two deeds is shown more in
detail when it is borne in mind that by the one, the United
States doubled its extent as to land — adding what later was
made into fifteen states, and by the other gained a fuller
knowledge of these possessions. These two acts of Jefferson
were so truly his as to conception and execution, and so
closely related, that it is difficult to consider them separately.
It seems truer to fact to consider each as part of a well
rounded whole.

184

When word of the Louisiana purchase came to Jefferson
he was overwhelmed with fear — in the first place as to its
constitutionahty, for he was a strict constructionist, and in
the second place, what would the people generally think of
spending so much money in the purchase of such a vast terri-
tory of Avhich so little was known.

This brought it about that the President became more
and more convinced of the necessity of the proposed explora-
tion and arranged that it should be organized on a larger
scale with enlarged facihties for gaining all available in-
formation; and thus it came about that instead of ten or
twelve under a competent leader, the expedition consisted of
forty-three men, ^\ith two competent leaders — Captain Meri-
wether LeAvis and William Clark; and at this time, early in
December, 1803, all were gathered together here on Ilhnois
soil at the mouth of Wood river to spend the winter prepara-
tory to starting on the expedition early in the Spring.

There is veiy little written to tell how the Avinter was
spent. The LcAvis and Clark journals say, "That on account
of the objections of the Spanish Governor, to their passing
the "winter at LaChaurette the highest settlement on the Mis-
souri river as had been intended they had encamped at the
mouth of Wood river, on the eastern side of the Mississippi
out of his jurisdiction where they passed the mnter in dis-
ciphning the men, and making necessary preparations for
setting out early in the spring."

But, though so little is written as to details of the army
life there, interest attaches to everything connected mth the
coming together of these men ready to carry forward this
undertaking of so much importance in the country's history,
the boats they came in and were to use in the trip up the
Missouri, the stores they brought mth them, for their own
use and to gain favor of the Indians through whose country
they were to pass, and the men themselves, all these are of
interest and of these something has been written.

The boats, three in number, had been made at Pittsburg
and had been used to bring the men down the Ohio and up the

185

Mississippi, striking many a sand bar and having to be pulled
off more than once by a friendly ox team along the shore.
One was a keel boat or bateau, fifty-five feet long, twelve feet
wide, and dramng three feet of water. It had a square sail,
twenty oars, and for protection in case of attack had steel
sheets at the sides which could be raised or lowered as de-
sired. The other two were of the periogue class, about twenty
to twenty-five feet long, one with six oars, the other mth
seven. These boats were now all safely moored along the
river's bank.

Then the stores they had brought along, well, they had
flour, pork, meal, and such things for their subsistence, and it
is stated they had whiskey, whether for their own use or other
purposes is not told. There were seven bales of necessary
stores. In these were quantities of clothing, working utensils,
guns made under the supervision of Lewis at Lancaster, Pa.,
locks, flints, powder, ball and other such things. Then there
were fourteen bales made up largely "with merchandise for
traffic A\dth the Indians, and one box especially filled with an
assortment of things intended as presents for Indian chiefs,
such as richly laced coats, medals, knives, tomahawks, flags,
fish hooks, awls, etc., for the men, and beads, looking-glasses,
handkerchiefs, paints for the face, etc., for the women, all to-
gether making quite a variety to be carried on such a journey.
In packing the bales a propoi'tion of each set of articles was
placed in each to guard against entire loss of any one article.

Of the medals mentioned above there were three grades :
Number one was a medal 2i/8 inches in diameter with impres-
sion of President Jefferson on face side and on reverse
clasped hands covering crossed pipe of peace and battle-axe,
with legend "peace and friendship." These were to be used
to gain favor ^rith the chiefs. Number two represented some
domestic animal ; number three a farmer sowing grain.

But of most interest are the men themselves encamped
there during this winter of 1803-4. From Jefferson's papers
we find that great care was taken in the composition of the ex-
peditionary force. Men were chosen with fair intelligence and
common sense, strong, healthy men, courageous, disposed to

186

get along together, willing to suffer hardship if needs be ; men
with such qualifications were the only ones considered for
such an undertaking. Some were soldiers selected from the
various posts, others from the frontiers selected for their pe-
culiar fitness. It is said as many as one hundred were rejected
in getting the required number of men. None were married.
All those accepted were enhsted as soldiers in the army.

The company as now constituted and in camp, consisted
of forty-three men besides the two officers, Lewis and Clark.
Nine of these men were from Kentucky; fourteen had been
taken from the regular army; two were French watermen;
one was interpreter and hunter and a black servant of Lieu-
tenant Clark. Of these forty-three men, sixteen were to go
only as far as Mandan Nation to help with the stores and to
aid in repelling attacks from the Indians in the early stages
of the journey.

And now as to the men themselves in camp there these
mnter months. The most prominent was, of course. Captain
Meriwether Lewis, commanding the expedition, a Virginian
of one of the best families of the state, both on his father's
and mother's side; spent a few years in school, joined the mi-
litia and was soon transferred to the regular army ; at twenty-
three became captain and in 1801 at twenty-seven years of
age, he became private secretary to President Jeif erson. When
the dreams of the exploring expedition was to become a re-
ality, Le'WT.s made a request of President Jefferson that he be
appointed to lead, and the request was granted. In Jefferson's
Memoirs, he himself writes of Lems: "I now had opportunity
of kno^ring him intimately; of courage undaunted, possessing
a firmness and perseverance of purpose which nothing but im-
possibilities could divert from its direction ; careful as a fa-
ther of those committed to his charge, yet steady in mainten-
ance of order and discipline, honest, disinterested, liberal, of
sound understanding and a fidelity to truth so scrupulous that
whatever he should report would be as certain as if seen by
ourselves — with all these qualifications I could have no hesi-
tation in confiding the enterprise to him. ' ' No higher praise
could be given to anyone. Afterwards when the territory of

187

Louisiana was set up he was appointed first govemor. Cap-
tain LeAns was in command at the encampment on Wood riv-
er during this winter of 1803-4.

It was concluded that there should be an associate leader
to take command in case of death or disability of Captain
Le\\'is, so William Clark, also a Virginian, a younger brother
of General George Rogers Clark was selected. He was the
ninth of a family of ten children. In early years he had re-
moved with his family to the falls of the Ohio, the present
Louis^alle, Ky. He was named as second in command and in-
deed only held the rank of first lieutenant in the army, though
Captain Le^ris always treated him as of equal rank with him-
self. He proved himself very efficient i]i all the affairs of the
expedition, and showed special tact in his dealings v.-ith the
Indians. He was later appointed Superintendent of Indian
affairs in the western country with headquarters in St. Louis,
Mo. Lieutenant Clark was in camp at Wood river during
that Arinter.

Of the non-commissioned officers who passed the winter
there. Sergeant Charles Floyd may be named first as being
one of the nine young men from Kentuck5\ His was the only
death which occurred during the entire course of the expedi-
tion. All efforts to relieve him were ineffectual and he was
buried on top of a cliff with honors due to a brave soldier. A
cedar post marked the site of the grave located near the pres-
ent Sioux City, la. A traveler passing the spot in 1855 writes
that the post had been cut away within a few inches of the
ground by relic hunters. A monument now marks the spot
erected jointly by Government, State, County and individual
subscriptions, costing $20,000 and rising 100 feet high.

Another one there was; George Drewer, a half-breed
Indian, an interpreter, and famous during the whole journey
as a mighty hunter as is showai by reciting some of his
feats; sent in search of a deer, killed five, ran up against a
very large bear, had to climb a tree to escape his talons, from
which safe place he shot the brute. At another place was at-
tacked by a savage bear, but at twenty paces shot him through

188

the heart. Here are several items copied from the Lewis and
Clark Journals : ' ' Drewer came back about noon with the
skins of three deer and the flesh of one of the best of them. ' '
"Brought in three deer." "Had before evening killed seven
elk. ' ' He was leader in several buffalo hunts in which many
animals were killed. Also had adventures -with Indians who
snatched his rifle only getting it back after a ten mile chase."

The Lems and Clark journals say of him "we should
scarcely be able to subsist were it not for the expertness of
this most excellent hunter," and Captain Lems says of him
' ' a man of much merit particularly for his knowledge. ' '

John Coulter too was there. He was with the expedition
in all its perils and hardships going and until reaching Man-
dan Village on the return, when he at his own request received
his discharge with a testimonial of always performing his
duty.

Then engaging ^^dth two trappers he went back into the
wilds, where in the course of a couple of years he became a
conspicuous figure in two important events — one, the discov-
ery of what later became the Yellowstone National Pai"k, with
all its wonders ; the other, a personal adventure "with a party
of the Crow Indians where he, his companion having been
killed, after being riddled mth arrows, was captured; and
made a marvelous escape, after having been stripped to the
skin for torture, by outrunning the savage pursuers and hid-
ing under a raft in the river.

Then Alex Willard was there; noted in a different way
from some others mentioned. He served through the entire
expedition, married in 1807. Was in several later wars —
against Tecumseh in 1811. Also Black Hawk war. Was the
father of seven sons and five daughters; one son named for
Lewis, another for Clark. The father of twelve children, fifty
grandchildren and thirty great grandchildren, was a skilled
gunsmith and blacksmith. Kept a journal of the expedition
which was accidentally destroyed.

George Shannon too was there. During the expedition he
was the subject of many adventures. Once lost for sixteen

189

days, after the fourth day having nothing to eat but roots and
berries, and a rabbit killed by a piece of stick shot out of his
gun, the balls having been exhausted long before. Was sent
on various missions of importance by Captain Lems. He was
of a good protestant family — oldest of family. Wilson Shan-
non, later Governor of Ohio was the youngest.

George Shannon, when seventeen, ran away from home
and meeting Captain Lewis on his way to St. Louis enlisted
for the expedition. He is described as a fine looking young
man, very graceful and a fine conversationaUst. Afterwards
graduated from Transylvania University, Lexington, Ky.
Studied law graduating in same class as Sam Houston, was
Judge of Circuit court for many years, dying in Palmyra,
Mo., in 1836, where he was at that time holding court.

Peter Cruzette was there, an experienced waterman on
the Missouri; was also noted as the fiddler of the party, and
time and again was called on to entertain the visiting Indians
of evenings when they called at the camp.

It seems probable too, it was he who shot Captain Lewis
through the thigh when they were both out hunting elk, mis-
taking him, partly hidden in the bushes, for an elk.

So, too, was Richard Windsor there, who in passing along
the edge of a precipice lost his foothold, and but for the cool-
ness of Captain Lewis who heard his outcry, would have lost
his life.

Then William Bratton was there, a gunsmith in early Life
and expert in the use of tools in the expedition — probably
one of the blacksmiths so useful at Fort Mandan in making
tomahawks and battle axes.

John Shields was there, another one of the nine Ken-
tuckians, an artist in repairing guns and accoutrements ; at
Fort Mandan repairer of weapons and maker of battle axes.
Was taken several times by Captain Lewis on special mis-
sions; once attacked by three white bears and only escaped
by running down a steep precipice, injuring his knee in the act.

190

Then York was there, the body servant of Lieutenant
Clark, an object of continual merriment, wonder and some-
times fear, among the Indians. They could not be made to
believe black was his natural color. The grand chief of the
Minnetarees inquired about York's being black, and on his be-
ing brought into his presence examined him closely, spit on
his finger and rubbed his skin to wash off the paint. Not un-
til the negro showed him his short kinky hair would he be per-
suaded he was not a white man painted. Another time they
flocked around to see the monster. To amuse them he told
them he had once been a vnld animal and had been bought and
tamed by his master, and then showed them feats of strength
which made him appear still more terrible. On the return of
the expedition to St. Louis, in appreciation of his services his
master gave him his freedom.

In these few pages the thought has been to present as
briefly as possible something of the reasons for the bringing
together of this body of men, encamped at the mouth of Wood
river on the Illinois side, something of the men themselves in
Camp there, and something of the immense gain to our coun-
try by reason of the successful accomplishment of the aims of
the expedition.

What has been written has to do Avith two very important
events, closely associated, which taken together, Henry Adams
claims, did as much to add to the fame of Thomas Jetferson
as did the writing of the Declaration of Independence.

A monument — a broken shaft — was erected in Le^vis coun-
t}", Tenn., to the memory of Meriwether LeA\ds whose life came
to an untimely end at the age of thirty-five while travehng
from Natchez to Washington, D. C, on government business.

Also a monument was erected to Charles Floyd, the only
member of the expedition who died during the entire two and
one-half years. It would seem a most fitting thing to have
a shaft erected at the mouth of Wood river by the State of
IlUnois or a suitable marker placed there by some of the patri-
otic organizations.

191

Such recognition would bestow as much honor upon the
donors as upon the recipients.

This matter is commended to the attention of the Illinois
State Historical Society or other patriotic societies of the
state.

The Wood River neighborhood was a few years later the
scene of an Indian massacre noted in the annals of early Illi-
nois. On July 10, 1814:, on what is now the southwest quarter
of Section 5 in Wood River township, Madison county, in the
forks of Wood River, Mrs. Rachael Reagan and her two chil-
dren, two children of Captain Abel Moore and two children
of William Moore were killed by a party of roving Indians.

The story of this dastardly murder of a woman and six
children forms a sad but thrilling chapter in the history of
border warfare.

THE VISIT TO SPRINGFIELD OF RICHARD M.
JOHNSON, MAY 18-20, 1843.

In the iDi-esidential election of 1840 the Democratic party
secured the electoral vote of Illinois by a small majority,
though the Whig candidate, William Henry Harrison, was
elected president of the United States.

During the campaign great Whig meetings were held in
all parts of the State. Galena, in the extreme northwestern
part of the state held a significant meeting, as did the Httle
to^Yn of Carlinville forty miles south of Springfield, and the
capital city, Springfield,* held a great rally with 15,000 peo-
ple in attendance, at which the rude pageantry of border pol-
itics played a great part. It was the "Log Cabin and Hard
Cider" campaign.

This Whig ^^ctory produced a confusion in party lines
and the Whig and Democratic newspapers of the times, alike,
in Illinois, show many changes of front in their attempts to
explain the political policies of their respective candidates
and parties.

John Tyler, who was elected vice-president on the ticket
which elected William Henry Harrison president, had suc-
ceeded to the presidency upon the death of General Harrison
within a few weeks after the inauguration, and was by 1843
la}T.ng his plans to secure his own re-election as a Whig.

The Democrats had of course plenty of candidates, among
whom the most prominent were James Buchanan, Lewis Cass,
and Thomas H. Benton. There also appeared in the Demo-
cratic party, especiallj" in the West, a sentiment favoring the
nomination of Richard M. Johnson, former vice-president, and
military hero.

•For an account of this Springfield meeting, see "The Young Men's Convention
and Old Soldiers' Meeting- at Springfield. June 3-4, 1840," by Isabel Jamison In Trans-
actions Illinois State Historical Society, 1914, page 160.

193

Old John Reynolds, former Governor of Illinois, who was
always an active politician was strongly in favor of Johnson.
The Belle\alle Advocate, Governor Reynolds' paper, came out
for Johnson in 1841 and proclaimed him "the friend of the
"West and the Advocate of the reduction of the price of public
lands."!

Reynolds also claimed that in St. Clair county, the
friends of General James Shields, Lyman Trumbull, and Gus-
tavus Koerner packed the convention against resolutions fav-
oring the candidacy of Johnson. However the Illinois friends
of Johnson stood by him and in the Spring of 1843 he made a
visit to IlUnois where he was well received.

On May 8, 1843, he visited Belleville where a great meet-
ing was held with Governor Reynolds as the presiding officer.
Meetings in honor of Colonel Johnson were held in other
townis including Jacksonville and Springfield.

Elaborate preparations were made for the Springfield
meeting. A committee consisting of the most prominent Dem-
ocrats in the city was appointed to arrange for the great
man's reception. The Illinois State Register printed a full ac-
count of the personnel and membership of the committee, and
later an account of the distinguished guest and the details of
the manner in which he was entertained. Colonel Johnson
arrived in Springfield on the afternoon of Friday, May 18,
1843, and remained in the city until late Sunday evening,
May 20.

Springfield was in 1843 a city of less than 5,000 people,
and it must have taxed its hospitality and resources to enter-
tain such large crowds. The chairman of the reception com-
mittee was W. L. D. Ewing.

In 1833 the Lieutenant-Governor of the State, Zadoc
Casey, resigned, as he had become a member of Congress, and
W. L. D. Ewing, who was president of the State Senate, be-
came by virtue of his office lieutenant-governor, and upon the
resignation of the Governor, John Reynolds, Dec. 17, 1834,

t Illinois Centennial History, Vol. 2, Pease, "The Frontier State," pages 275-276.

194

who also had been elected to the United States Congress,
E\ving became governor of the state and served fifteen days,
until the inauguration of Governor Joseph Duncan, which oc-
curred December 3, 1834.

On December 29, 1835, Mr. Ewing was elected United
States Senator to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Elias
Kent Kane, and served until the close of Mr. Kane's term in
1837. Ewing was then again elected to the Illinois Legisla-
ture, and became the speaker of the House, defeating the
young Abraham Lincoln for that high position. In March,
1843, Mr. Ewing was elected Auditor of Public Accounts by
the Illinois General Assembly, and he served in this capacity
until his death, March 25, 1846. He was for many years a
prominent figure in Illinois politics. He was State Auditor
at the visit of Colonel Johnson, when he served as chairman
of the reception committee.

George R. Weber, the secretary of the committee, was one
of the editors of the State Register, the firm being Walters
and Weber. The account of the meeting of the reception com-
mittee as printed in the State Register in its issue of May 19,
1843, is here given in full, as is the account of the meeting and
the reception to the hero and the addresses on that occasion
as pubhshed in the Register of May 26, of the same year.

Meeting of the Committee for the Reception of
Colonel Johnson.

(From the Illinois State Register, May 19, 184S.)

At a meeting of democratic citizens of Springfield, as-
sembled in Jackson Hall, for the purpose of adopting meas-
ures for the suitable reception of Colonel R. M. Johnson, on
his contemplated visit to this city.

On motion. General Ewing was called to the chair, and
George R. Weber appointed secretary.

The object of the meeting having been explained, on
motion of John Calhoun, Esq., it was

195

Resolved, That a committee of arrangements be
appointed to make the necessarj^ arrangements for
the reception of Colonel R. M. Johnson.

Resolved further, That a committee be appointed
to meet Colonel Johnson at Jacksonville, and escort
him to this city.
In pursuance of the first resolution the chair appointed

Messrs. James W. Keys, George R. Weber, E. Cook, T. Lewis,
Reuben F. Ruth, Isaac B. Curran, Michael Doyle, John M.
Burkhardt, M. Glenn, Charles Hurst, C. Webster, William
Fondy, William Carpenter, Morris Lindsay, J. Wickersham,
G. G.Grubb, A. Elliott, J. Parkinson, J. Barrett, P. Foster,
J. Drennan, A. Trumbo, T. Long, J. W. Taylor, J. Taylor and
Doctor Holbert.

In pursuance of the second resolution the chair appointed
Messrs. John CaUioun, M. Brajonan, Thompson Campbell, D.
B. Campbell, William AValters, Edward Jones, James W. Bar-
rett, Edmund Roberts, Jesse B. Thomas, Milton Carpenter
and E. R. Wiley.

On motion of Mr. Roberts it was

Resolved, That the Committee of Arrangements
be instructed to invite the citizens of the city and
county, ^\ithout distinction of party, and also the mil-
itary, to participate with us in welcoming Colonel
Johnson to the city. On motion the meeting ad-
journed.

W. L. D. Ewing, Chairman.
George R. Weber, Secretary.

Eeception of Coi.. R. M. Johnson at Springfield,
May 19, 1843/

(From the Illinois State Register, IWay 26, 1843.)

The reception of the Hero of the Thames at the seat of
government last week, was an event which a\^11 occur but once
in a life time. The enthusiasm^the joj^ful recognition of old
friends and old soldiers — the immense multitude of anxious
and admiring spectators — the splendid appearance of our
companies of "citizen soldiers" — the waving of handker-
chiefs from the crowded windows — the firing of cannon and
musquetry at short intervals — the venerable appearance of
the scar-covered Hero — the eloquence and deep feeling with
which he was addressed and the candid, modest, impartial but
soul-stirring reply of the Hero— all combined to render the
scenes of the day so vivid and striking as to rivet them on the
memory forever. Who could look on the Hero and patriot, as
he recited over the battles of the Thames, mthout feeling

1 Richard Mentor Johnson, vice-president of the United States, 1836-1840, was
born at Bryant's Station, Ky., October 17, 1781. His early education was limited. He
had four years at grammar school and finished his education at Transylvania Uni-
versity. He began to practice law when he was only nineteen years of age. At
twenty-two he entered into public life. He was elected to the state legislature in
1804, and after serving two years in that position was elected to a seat in the
United States house of representatives as a Republican. He was re-elected to
congress, and, with the exception of a few months, served from 1807 until 1819.
Immediately after the adjournment of congress in 1812 he returned home, where he
organized three companies of volimteers, which being combined with another, he was
placed in command of the whole, and took part in the battle of the llaumee, where
he killed an Indian chief, supposed to be Tecimiseh. Afterward the question, "Who
killed Tecumseh?" passed Into a saying, and the fact has never been positively settled.
After the fall of Tecumseh the Indians continued a brisk tire while retiring, but a
regmient brought up by Gov. Shelby soon silenced them, while, a part of Col. Johnson's
men having flajiked them, the rout became general. At the moment when Johnson's
regiment made its charge, Oien. Proctor with about fifty dragoons fled from the field.
His carriage and papers were taken. It is said that his flight was so rapid that in
twenty-four hours he found himself sixty-five miles distant from the battlefield. CoL
Johnson was carried from the field almost Ufeless. He passed through incredible
fatigue, severities and privations during his passage from Detroit to Sandusky and
from thence to Kentucky, being carried over a distance of 300 miles, through the
wilderness, in the winter, suspended between two horses. He remained about two
months in Kentucky, when he had so far recovered from his wounds that he was
able to repair to Washington and resume his seat m congress. The fame of his
exploits had preceded him, and at the capital he was received with distinguished
testimonials of respect and admiration. On liis way to the house he was cheered
by the ijopulace, and congress passed a joint resolution ordering that he should be
presented with a suitable testimonial for his eminent services. In 1819, at the close
of his congressional term. Col. Johnson was elected to the United States senate in
place of John J. Crittendtn, who had resigned. At the end of his first senatorial
term he was re-elected and served until March 3, 1829. From this time until 1837
he was continuously elected a member of the house of representatives. At the
election of Martin Van Buren to the presidency, Co!. Johnson was the candidate for
vice-president, and was chosen by the senate to that position, no choice having been
made by the electoral college. At the end of his term of service he returned home,
but was afterward again sent to congress, and was a member of that body at the
time of his death. In 1814 Col. Johnson was appointed Indian commissioner. He died
in Frankfort, Ky., November 19, 1850.

196

197

proud of his country — proud that he was an American citizen?
Who could Usten to the recital of the ''forlorn hope" headed
by Col. Johnson, called for by one of the audience — an act of
bravery performed by twenty men, unparalleled in history
for its self-devotion and courage — without feeling the sure
conviction, that while America possessed such noble and
brave spirits, she never can be conquered by a foreign foe?
But we are anticipating the events of the day.

In the largest part of our edition last week, we announced
the expected arrival of Col. Johnson on Monday last. While
we were writing the paragraph, however, the veteran was
within fifty miles of Springfield and coming on at a rapid
pace. The Committee of reception left this place to meet Col.
Johnson on Friday morning last ; and met him at Berhn, six-
teen miles from Springfield, about 2 o'clock P. M. ; to which
place he had been accompanied by a Committee of the public-
spirited citizens of Jacksonville. At Berlin, Col. Johnson
enjoyed the hospitality of his old friend Mr. Yates- who pre-
pared one of the best dinners we have ever partaken of for
this many a day.

After taking leave of the Committee from Jacksonville,
and the people of Berlin, Col. Johnson set out for Spring-
field about 4 o'clock on Friday, accompanied by the Commit-
tee of Eeception. He reached Springfield just before sunset
and amidst an immense crowd of people retired to his lodg-
ings at the American Hotel.

On the next day (Saturday) about 10 o'clock A. M. a pro-
cession was formed opposite the American under the direc-
tion of Col. R. Allen,^ Chief Marshal, which moved through
the city about an hour afterwards in the following order :

2 Henry Yates, son of Abner Yates and Polly Anne Hawes, bom in Fayette
County, Kentucky, October 29, 1786; died at New Berlin, Illinois, October 10 1865.
Father of war governor, Richard Yates. '

3 Robert Allen was born in the year 1800, in Greensburg, Green County, Ky.
He was married there to a Miss Anderson, and came to Springfield, 111., in 1831. Col.
Allen engaged in the mercantile business as a member of the firm of Allen & Blanken-
shlp, soon after coming to Springfield. He also became a mail contractor on a very
extensive scale, and brought a large number of fine stage coaches from Nashville,
Tenn., being the first ever Introduced into the State. He made Springfield his head-
quarters, and on some occasions had as many as five hundred horses on hand at one
time. Colonel Allen was one of the directors of the old State Bank. He was con-
nected with the army in the Mormon war in 1845, and in the Mexican war of 1846-47.
Not long after coming to Springfield, Mrs. Allen died, and Mr. Allen was married in
April, 1833, to Jane Eliza Bergen. They had two children.

198

Chief Marshal

The Artillery Commanded by Capt. Barker.

Marshal The Cadets Marshal

Commanded by Capt. Johnson

The Springfield Band

The Sangamon Guards
Marshal Commanded by Capt. Baker.* Marshal

Col. R. M. Johnson
In a carriage drawn by four horses and accompanied by
the Committee of Reception. Committee of Arrangements.

Marshal The Governor^ Marshal

The Orator of the Day

Officers of State

Citizens and strangers in carriages, on horseback and on
foot.

In this order the procession moved through all the prin-
cipal streets of the city and the Hero was greeted from the
windows and housetops, with the waving of handerchief s from
the ladies, the huzzas of the people to which the Colonel re-
sponded in his usual frank and courteous manner.

The procession then halted before the State House, when
the military and citizens filled the Hall of the House of Rep-
resentatives and the ladies occupied the gallery. Col. Johnson
accompanied by the Committee of Reception then entered the
Hall where he was greeted with three deafening cheers by the
people. Approaching the chair of the speaker, Thompson
Campbell,'^ Esq., Secretary of State, arose from the chair and
addressed the hero as follows :

4 Edward Dickinson Baker.

5 Governor Thomas Ford.

6 Thompson Campbell, Secretary of State and Congressman, was born in Chester
County, Pa., in 1811 ; removed in childhood to the western part of the State and was
educated at Jefferson College, afterward reading law at Pittsburgh. Soon after being
admitted to the bar he removed to Galena, IlL, where he had acquired some mining
interests, and. in 1843, was appointed Secretary of State by Governor Ford, but
resigned In 1846, and became .a delegate to the constitutional convention of 1847 ;
in 1850 was elected as a Democrat to Congress from the Galena District, but
defeated for re-election in 1852 by E. B. Washburne. He was then appointed by
President Pierce commissioner to look after certain land grants by the Mexican
Government in Califo*-*ua, removing to that State in 1853, but resigned this position

199

"Col. Richard M, Johnson —

Sir : In the name and in behalf of the Democratic citizens
of Sangamon County I bid you a sincere and grateful wel-
come. The joyousness which brightens every countenance in
this vast assembly speaks in a language more eloquent than
words the honest sentiments of gratitude and love which your
appearance in our midst has waked in every heart. It is un-
necessary for me on the present occasion to refer to the past
events of your most eventful life ; they have become a part of
the history of our county and are written in letters of unfad-
ing brilliancy on the hearts of your countrymen.

This beloved Union which your wisdom as a stateman has
strengthened and your blood shed in its defense has ce-
mented, may justly, as it has done claim you for its own ; but
while the West acknowledges the justice of the claim it can-
not yield the loftiest pride of its young hope, the pride of be-
ing the Sire of so worthy and noble a son. Devoted as you
have ever been to Western interest, and Western prosperity
— watching with keen anxiety and more than parental feeling,
the western settler since that day when you exchanged the se-
cure and peaceful halls of Congress for the field of battle — of
danger and of blood—' ' trusting as you did then to the liberal-
ity of Congress for indemnification," it would be base ingrati-
tude in those to whom your mighty arm gave protection, and
your more than Roman patriotism, and courage, peace and
security — not to present to you their highest, purest, holiest
gift, the free will offering of a free people, the right hand of
friendship and the heart of gratitude.

Happy, happy indeed are they that to them has been re-
served the opportunity of hearing that voice which at the ever

about 1855 to engage in general practice. In 1859 he made an extended visit to
Europe with his family, and, on his return, located In Chicago, the following year
becoming a candidate for presidential elector-at-large on the Breckinridge ticket;
in 1861 returned to California, and, on the breaking out of the Civil War, became a
zealous champion of the Union cause, by his speeches exerting a powerful influence
upon the destiny of the State. He also served in the California Legislature during
the war, and, 1864, was a member of the Baltimore convention which nominated Mr.
Lincoln for the Presidency a second time, assisting most ably in the subsequent
campaign to carry the State for the Republican ticket. Died In San Francisco,
December 6, 1868.

200

memorable battle of the Thames — amidst the din of war, the
horrid clash of steel meeting steel, and louder and more ter-
rible than all, the savage yell of the savage foe was heard far
above the storm, exhorting your brave followers on to the con-
flict — animating them by your example, "To deeds of noble
daring"; and if it should be the will of heaven, to die for their
country. That was a proud day for the American flag and on
that day the American eagle, "soaring in its pride of place"
took a loftier flight. Could the crowned monarchs of the old
world have beheld you when you rose from your seat in Con-
gress, from amidst the assembled wisdom and guardian fa-
thers of the republic to meet her enemies on the field of battle
and had their vision extended to that field, from which vic-
torious you were carried faint and bleeding and again looked
upon you when you returned to that seat, pale, emaciated and
covered mth scars, they would have exclaimed in trembhng
accents: "how vain, inconceivably vain is the attempt to sub-
jugate, to conquer, a people with such Spartan spirit to fight
their battles and such mighty minds to direct their councils. ' '
However great the debt of gratitude we owe as a people for
your services in the field, your unwavering support and able
exposition of the great conservative principles of democracy,
claim for you no less our high regard and lasting gratitude.
They have given you a name which mil be remembered in
whatever country or in whatever clime the friends of civil, re-
ligious and political liberty shall find a home. Of all this your
country has not been unmindful or forgetful. You have once
been called to the second office mthin her gift and your name
will doubtless together with others highly distinguished in the
annals of American democracy be presented before the Na-
tional Democratic Convention of 1844 and will pre-eminently
claim its high and solemn consideration. If in its wisdom and
patriotism it should present to the Democracy of the Union
the name of Colonel Richard M. Johnson, I may here assert
that there is no state in the Union where the Democracy
%\ill hail the nomination with louder and more sincere ac-
clamations of joy than they will in the State of Illinois ; they
will rally around your standard, unfurl their banner to the
breeze — "not soiled and worn," with the principles un-

201

changed and unchangeable written in letters of living light
upon its broad and ample folds and a victory worthy of the
hero of the Thames will be the rich reward.

Permit me, sir, again in the name of this people — for I
perceive many present who are opposed to you politically
anxious to catch a glimpse of, and take by the hand the soldier
of our common country — here too, are the young, the beau-
tiful, the lovely and the matronly of the land, always the first
to welcome the soldier to his peaceful home — the scattered
flowers in life 's path — for whom and in the name of our com-
mon country I bid you a most heartfelt welcome. ' '

The eloquent address of Mr. Campbell being concluded
the large hall resounded \nth. a spontaneous shout of applause
so deafening as to ring in our ears for an hour afterwards.

Col. Johnson then ascended the platform occupied by the
chair of the speaker and addressed the assembly in a reply
of about two hours in length — a reply which did not seem to
us to occupy more than half an hour, so deeply interesting
were his remarks. The old hero did not attempt to make any
display of oratory or eloquence. He was eloquent — eloquent
in his language, in the daring deeds he described, in the justice
he rendered to his brave commander and his brother soldiers ;
and his very appearance spoke to the heart of every beholder
in terms of patriotic eloquence which no language can de-
scribe.

We cannot undertake to follow Col. Johnson through his
speech. We took no notes of it and the speaker himself did not
make the slightest preparation. He began by returning his
most sincere and heartfelt thanks to the persons present for
the honor they had conferred upon him, and to the orator of
the day for the eloquent and flattering speech to which we had
all hstened. He said he had left his home in Kentucky about
forty -five days previous without the least expectation or wish
of making any parade through the country. In fact he had ap-
proached every place he visited without notice — he was actual-
ly in St. Louis he said before the people there knew of his
presence. He could not but feel the deeper gratitude and the

202

higher gratification in having become the object of such high
distinction and honor wherever he went.

During the course of his speech Col. Johnson would often
refer to many well known persons in the crowd from "Old
Kentuck ' ' who had left a good country for a better, as he was
compelled to say since he had passed over the rich and beauti-
ful prairies of Illinois.

In the scenes which he described during the last war, he
would often refer to Col. Craig and several other brave and
meritorious soldiers in that war who confirmed every state-
ment made by Col. Johnson. The old hero said that while he
was a member of Congress in 1812 news of the massacre at the
river Raisin by Proctor and his murdering bands had thrown
all Kentucky into mourning. He applied to President Monroe
who gave him a commission to raise 1,000 mounted volunteers
to join the army under Gen. Harrison. "We performed the
duty. The regiment was raised. Every man in it was made of
the right stuff. ' ' The massacre of 300 of their coimtrymen at
the river Raisin where they were enclosed in a bullock pen
and shot down in cold blood, one by one, under the eye of Proc-
tor^, the British general, had created a spirit in his troop
which caused them all to make their wills before they left Ken-
tucky resolving never again to return unless they came back
conquerors over the butcherly murderers of their country-
man. Each man was mounted and was armed with a rifle and
pistols, a good sword and a sharp knife similar to the Indians.
In fact these men knew what they had to contend with. They
did not go out to fight by the day but by the job. "When they
arrived at the American camp in Canada Harrison was on the
watch for Proctor. ' ' 0, how I did want to catch that fellow, ' '
said Col. Johnson. "I never thirsted for man's blood but
Proctor was a monster. Even Tecumseh, an Indian warrior
whose nature is savage and whose education taught him that
a scalp was honorable no matter how obtained, was shocked at
the conduct of the cowardly assassin. While Proctor was si-

7 CoL Henry A. Proctor, born in Wales, 1765 ; died at Liverpool, England, 1859.
A British general. He was colonel of a regiment in Canada in 1812 ; defeated the
Americans under James Winchester at Frenchtown in 1813 ; was repulsed by Harrison
at Fort Meigs, by Croghan at Fort Stephenson, and by Harrison at the battle of the
Thames (October 5, 1813).

203

lently looking on at the massacre of our men in the bullock
pen, Tecumseh came up and put a stop to the cold blooded
murders telHng Proctor "you could have prevented this but
did not."

We all wanted to catch Proctor, said Col. Johnson. I
asked permission of Gen. Harrison to go in search of him. I
shall never forget the fire in his eye as he replied: "Go,
Colonel, but remember discipline. The rashness of your brave
Kentuckians has heretofore destroyed themselves. Be cau-
tious, sir, as well as brave and active, as I know you all are."
We were near that beautiful river of Canada, the Thames. I
departed with my regiment in search of Proctor. In a short
time we caught a spy who begged hard for his life. I told him
if he did not tell us where Proctor was, I would instantly shoot
him. I talked big, said Johnson, to scare him. I don't know
whether I should have killed him or not. However, he said he
was an American and had been compelled by Proctor to come
out as a spy. He said that the British army was only within
a few miles of us. I instantly sent word to Gen. Harrison of
what this spy had developed and afterwards in marching to
the spot designated sure enough there was Proctor and Ms
soldiers drawn up in beautiful order on a rising ground about
700 strong. I again sent word to Gen. Harrison that "we had
treed Proctor" and in a very short time Gen. Harrison came
up mth the main body of the army on foot. I again asked per-
mission of Gen. Harrison to begin the battle. He granted that
permission ; and here let me say that Gen. Harrison behaved
throughout this engagement like a brave oflScer. He was where
he ought to have been — in the place where duty called him. As
to my regiment, it was a pious regiment. That is, we had many
reHgious men in it. Preacher Sucket was an uncommon man.
I do believe he loved fighting better than anything else except
praying — that is fighting the enemies of his country. Well, I
divided my regiment into two bodies. My brother, James,
commanded the 500 of them who were opposed to the British.
Upon the first onset of brother James with a few of his men
the British line fired entire. Upward of 350 of them all fired
together, and what do you think was the damage? Why, fellow
citizens, they killed one horse ! Those falling back, the remain-

204

ing portion of the British also advanced and fired; but this
time not a soul was hurt ; they did not even touch a horse. Our
men then advanced at full speed on the British who threw
do^\^l their weapons calling out, "We surrender; we surren-
der ! ' ' Proctor the coward, had fled long before ; like the cap-
tain I once heard of who told his men that they might fight or
retreat as they deemed most advisable but as "retreat" might
be the word and as he (the captain) was a little lame, he would
set out now so that he might not be behind too far! So it was
with Proctor. He had run away some time before. Such was
the battle of the Thames, said Col. Johnson. The British were
defeated by my brother James and his brave men without los-
ing scarcely a man. (Here Col. Johnson concluded, but was
called upon to give an account of that part of the regiment en-
gaged vdth the Indians.)

Col. Johnson said that at his age it was wrong to put on
any false modesty and as he had been called upon to relate
that portion of the fight which took place vnth. the Indians he
would endeavor to do so. The Indians were 1,400 strong com-
manded by Tecumseh, one of the bravest warriors who ever
drew breath. He was a sort of Washington among the In-
dians. That is they looked upon him as we looked upon Wash-
ington. The Indians were in ambush on the other side of what
we were informed was an impassable swamp ; but just before
the battle came on a narrow passage over the swamp was dis-
covered. Knowing well the Indian character I detennined to
push f orAvard \nth about twenty men in order to draw forth
the entire Indian fire, so that the remainder of the regiment
might rush forward upon them while their rifles were empty.
Having promised the wives, mothers and sisters of my men
before we left Kentucky that I would place their husbands,
sons and brothers in no hazard which I was unfiling to share
myself, I put myself at the head of these twenty men and we
advanced upon the covert in which I knew the Indians were
concealed. The moment we came in view we received the
whole Indian fire. Nineteen out of my twenty men dropped
on the field. I felt that I was myself severely wounded. The
mare I rode staggered and fell to her knees ; she had fifteen
balls in her as was afterwards ascertained but the noble ani-

205

mal recovered her feet by a touch from the rein. I waited but
a few moments when the remainder of the troop came up and
we pushed forward on the Indians who instantly retreated. I
noticed an Indian chief among them who succeeded in rallying
them three different times. This I thought I would endeavor
to prevent because it was by this time known to the Indians
that their allies, the British, had surrendered. I advanced
singly upon him, keeping my right arm close to my side, and
covered by the swamp he took to a tree and from thence de-
liberately fired upon me. Although I previously had four balls
in me this last wound was more acutely painful than all of
them. His ball struck me on the knuckle of my left hand, passed
through my hand, and came out just above the wrist. I ran my
left arm through the bridle rein, for my hand instantly swelled
and became useless. The Indian supposed he had mortally
wounded me ; he came out from behind the tree and advanced
upon me with uplifted tomahawk. When he had come mthin
my mare 's length of me I drew my pistol and instantly fired,
having a dead aim upon him. He fell and the Indians shortly
after either surrendered or had fled. My pistol had one ball
and three buckshot in it, and the body of the Indian was found
to have a ball through his body and three buckshot in differ-
ent parts of his breast and head. (Thus fell Tecumseh, cried
out someone of the audience.) Col. Johnson said he did not
know that it was Tecumseh at that time. (Circumstances have
rendered this a matter of certainty. No intelligent man, we be-
lieve, now pretends to doubt the fact.)

As Col. Johnson described these thrilling incidents, the
vast hall was so still as to render the fluttering of one of the
window curtains distinctly heard all over the room. Some one
cried out ' ' Huzza for the Hero ' ' ; and the simultaneous shout
which instantly arose from a thousand voices might have
waked the dead. We have given a very imperfect sketch of
the remarks of Col. Johnson; they are taken entirely from
memory. His speech was interspersed with lively anecdotes
such as he knows how to tell, and which we should only spoil
by attempting a repetition. He concluded by saying that the
noble animal upon which he fought that day survived only till

206

she had borne him out of the press of the battle, when she fell
dead, and I myself was unable to rise. I felt that dreamy feel-
ing coming over me consequent upon the loss of blood and
after the excitement of deadly strife has passed away. I was
reported as dead to Gen. Harrison who instantly rode up to
the spot when it was found that I was not dead but only pos-
suming.

I cannot conclude, said Col. Johnson, without doing justice
to the memory of my brave commander. Gen. Harrison^ He
was a brave and experienced general. He was just where he
ought to have been throughout the battle ; he was ready with
the remainder of the army to push forward to our support if
it had been necessary ; but Proctor was an arrant coward and
ran away at the commencement of the battle; the foot sol-
diers of Harrison 's forces were also drawn up in a hollow
square, just in the position where they could do the greatest
service to either division of my mounted regiment. Braver
men never trod the earth than those foot soldiers. Col. John-
son concluded by again returning his sincere thanks to all
present for the unmerited honors they had conferred upon
him.

Col. Johnson was then conducted to his lodgings at the
American, where a dinner was prepared upon the Democratic
plan to which all had access if they chose to pay their six bits.
Many excellent toasts were drank full of patriotic fervor.

In the evening, the Democratic Association of Sangamon
county assembled in the hall of the House of Representatives,
for the purpose of presenting a hickory cane to the Hero of
the Thames. The large hall was filled to overflowing. Many
ladies graced the occasion by their presence. Col. Johnson was
introduced to the association, when Mr. Peck," on behalf of the

8 Gen. WiUiatn Henry Harrison.

9 Ebenezer Peck, early lawyer, was born in Portland, Maine, May 22, 1805;
received an academical education, studied law and was admitted to the bar in Canada
in 1827. He was twice elected to the provincial parliament and made king's counsel
in 1833 ; came to Illinois in 1835, settling in Chicago ; served in the State Senate
(1838-40), and in the House (1840-42 and 1858-60) ; was also clerk of the Supreme
Court (1841-45). reporter of Supreme Court decisions (1849-63). and member of
the constitutional convention of 1869-70. Mr. Peck was an intimate personal friend
of Abraham Lincoln, by whom he was appointed a member of the Court of Claims,
at Washington, serving until 1875. Died, May 25, 1881.

207

Association addressed Col. Johnson in a few brief and appro-
priate remarks to which Col. Johnson replied in a very inter-
esting speech of about an hour in length. He did ample jus-
tice on this occasion, as well as in the morning, to Gov. Shel-
by,^" whom he described as foremost in council as well as in
the field. In regard to the Oregon question which is now agi-
tating the public mind, Col. Johnson declared himself in favor
of the immediate occupation of the territory by the United
States and of extending our laws over it. He said he was for
taking possession, England to the contrary notwithstanding.
My motto is, said the old hero, "take possession of Oregon,
peaceably, if we can; forcibly, if we must." This sentiment
was responded to by deafening shouts of approbation. The
hickory cane presented to Col. Johnson was cut from the
grave of the Sage of Monticello, and bore the following in-
scription: "Presented to Col. Richard M. Johnson by the
Sangamon Democratic Association."

In the afternoon, the youth of the town formed a proces-
sion and waited on Col. Johnson at the American, where the
old veteran received them like a father, encouraged them to
fight for their country, when the lapse of time brought them
on the stage as men and citizen soldiers. He addressed them
in a speech filled with anecdotes and striking incidents, to
which the boys listened with breathless and earnest attention.
The colonel told them, that he could see by their flashing eyes
that they were made of the stuff to stand by their country in
after times against all foreign tyrants and despots.

On the next day (Sunday) Col. Johnson attended the
Methodist church in the morning where he heard an interest-
ing and eloquent sermon delivered by the Rev. Mr. Stamper,^^
and in the afternoon he visited the Baptist church where the
Rev. Mr. Dodge^^ delivered a most impressive and excellent
sermon. At dinner he partook of the hospitality of Col. Wil-
liam Prentiss accompanied by a few friends ; and in the even-

10 Governor Isaac Shelby of Kentucky, born in Maryland, December 11, 1750;
Governor of Kentucky, 1792-96 and 1812-16; died in Kentucky, July 18, 1826.

11 Rev. Jonathan Stamper, minister Methodist Church. 1841.

12 Rev. Henry W. Dodge, minister Baptist Church, 1841-43.

208

ing he took tea with Mr. Walters^* where several ladies and
gentlemen had the pleasure of conversing with him. He is a
most intelligent and sagacious man in private conversation;
evidently showing that he understands perfectly the condition
and wants of his country.

He departed in the Eastern stage for Terre Haute, about
10 'clock, accompanied by Mr. Grubb, one of the Committee
of Arrangements, and Mr. Brayman," one of the Committee
of Reception. He appeared greatly to have enjoyed his visit
to the Sucker state ; while we can assure him that a recipro-
cal pleasure was felt by all our citizens, in entertaining a guest
so patriotic, so distinguished, and so thoroughly honest.

Editobiaij Comment on the Speech of Colonel Richakd M.

Johnson.

(From the Illinois State Register, June 2, 1843.)

Several of our friends have informed us that we have made
a material misstatement of that part of Colonel Johnson's re-
marks, at this place, wherein he spoke of his personal conflict
with the Indian chief at the battle of the Thames. We have
made Colonel Johnson reply to the remark made by one of the
audience, ''thus fell Tecumseh," that "he did not know that
it was Tecumseh at the time." Colonel Johnson did not say
this. In fact we are satisfied from the unanimous opinion of

14 WiUiam Walters, editor of the "Illinois State Register," of the firm of Walters
& Weber.

15 Mason Brayman, lawyer and soldier, was born in Buffalo, N. Y., May 23, 1813 ;
brought up as a farmer, became a printer and edited "The Buffalo Bulletin," 1834-35 ;
studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1836 ; removed west in 1837, was city
attorney of Monroe, Mich., in 1838, and became editor of "The IjOuisville Advertiser"
in 1841. In 1842 he opened a law office in Springfield, 111., and the following year
was appointed by Governor Ford a commissioner to adjust the Mormon troubles, in
which capacity he rendered valuable service. In 1844-45 he was appointed to revise
the statutes of the State. Later he devoted much attention to railroad enterprises,
being attorney of the Illinois Central Railroad, 1851-55 ; then projected the con-
struction of a railroad from Bird's Point, opposite Cairo, into Arkansas, which was
partially completed before the war, and almost wholly destroyed during that period.
In 1861 he entered the service as major of the Twenty-ninth Illinois Volunteers,
taking part in a number of the early battles, incliidiner Fort Donelson and Shiloh ;
was promoted to a colonelcy for meritorious conduct at the latter, and for a time
served as adjutant-general on the staff of General McClernand ; was promoted to
brigadier-generaJ in September, 1862, at the close of the war receiving the brevet
rank of major-general After the close of the war he devoted considerable attention
to reviving his railroad enterprises in the South ; edited "The Illinois State Journal,"
1872-73 ; removed to Wisconsin and was appointed Governor of Idaho in 1876, serving
four years, after which he returned to Ripon, Wis. Died in Kansas City, February
27, 1895.

209

many persons present mth whom we have conversed, that he
made no reply to the remark.

From the nature of the conflict between Johnson and this
Indian chief, they must both have knoAvn each other. Colonel
Johnson saw the chief rallying the Indians a third time. The
chief was behind the stump of a tree, the body of which was
lying towards Colonel Johnson. The Colonel approached
the Indian on one side of the prostrate tree ; and his mare
stumbled across the dry branches of the tree. The noise at-
tracted the Indian, who instantly advanced on Johnson, on
the other side of the tree. Colonel Johnson said that he knew
by the eye of the chief that there was no back out in him. He
knew that he would fight ; and he accordingly held down his
right arm so as to protect it. It was covered by the swamp.
The Indian then fired, as we before stated, and the ball was
only prevented from passing through Johnson's body by
striking him on the knuckle of the left hand, which was in
front of him. As we before stated, Johnson held his fire until
sure of his enemy, when he drew his pistol and shot him. It
was a brave and glorious act ; which has very few to equal it in
the annals of chivalry in any age or country.

GREENE COUNTY: BORN 100 YEARS AGO.

By Chables Beadshaw

IlKnois is a domain comprising 102 counties. Each of
these counties has mthin its borders to'wns, villages and com-
munities, and these in turn are made up of homes — the homes
of the people, the seven or eight milUon people who really con-
stitute the State of Illinois.

We think of a wheel as revolving around its center, and
forget that the friction or the motive power that causes it to
move forward is apphed to its outer rim, its circumference.

Historians sometimes forget that this principle of me-
chanics applies also to history.

The history of Illinois, as of all states and nations, has
had its beginnings, not at Kaskaslda, and Vandalia, and
Springfield, but back in the homes — the pioneer homes and the
modem homes — out on the rim of the wheel that moves the
chariot of state ever forward. 'WTiatsoever of stamina and
rugged character have been stamped into our customs and
into our laws was first developed in and around the log
cabins that once stood in lonehness at the edge of forest
clearings or out on the broad expanse of unfenced prairie.

The early history of Illinois is a composite photograph
of life in these scattered communities and isolated cabins
that made the pioneer counties of the State. There were
fifteen of these counties in 1818, when Illinois became a State.
Four more came into existence the follomng year, and at
the session of the General Assembly during January and
February, 1821, there was increased activity in this line, and
seven new counties were formed. The centeimial anniver-
sary of these counties occurs next "wi^nter. The seven coun-
ties in the order in which they were formed, are Lawrence,
Greene, Sangamon, Pike, Hamilton, Montgomery and Fay-
ette.

This paper is to deal with the early history of one of the
seven — Greene county.

211

During the spring of the year 1820, several house and
barn raisings took place between Apple and Macoupin creeks,
a region that, two years before, had been the uttermost fron-
tier of civiUzation in the then newly-born State of IlUnois.
During the summer of that same year there was an occasional
"boss race" "nithin that same territory. In the fall there
were husking bees and hunting frolics. These house and
bam raisings, these horse races, these husking bees and
hunting parties provided the only means by which the pio-
neers of that region could exercise their natural bent as
social beings. It was 35 or 40 miles to Edwardsville, the
nearest town and their county seat. Not a church nor a
school house between the Apple and the Macoupin, nor for
many miles in either direction beyond those streams.

Hence the typical social gatherings of a pioneer settle-
ment — the house raisings and husking bees — were well at-
tended functions. Always there was one topic for talk wher-
ever a few of these hardy pioneers foregathered. It was
of the growth and future development of their sparse set-
tlement into a pohtical unit of the sovereign State of Illinois,
with a capital of its own — a county, with a county seat
located somewhere between Apple and Macoupin creeks.

The spring and summer of 1820 brought many acces-
sions to the scattered settlements of that region, and the
rapid growth gave weight to the agitation for forming a
new county. The second General Assembly of the State of
IlHnois assembled at Vandalia, December 4, 1820. The future
county, of course, had no representation in that body, and
whether it sent any lobbyists over the bridle paths to the
new state capital or not, can only be conjectured. Probably
that was unnecessary. At any rate, a bill to create the new
county was introduced early in the session, was passed Jan-
uary 18, and approved January 20, 1821.

The act creating the county bestowed upon it the name
"Greene," in honor of Gen. Nathaniel Greene of Revolu-
tionary fame. The boundaries, as then defined, included all
of the present counties of Greene and Jersey, and to this
territory was added that of the present counties of Macoupin,

212

Morgan and Scott. Thus the county became ''Mother
Greene" to a bevy of buxom daughters. Miss Morgan was
first to set up housekeeping for herself in 1823; Macoupin
followed in 1829, and Miss Jersey became a matron in 1839.
Little Miss Scott remained in the Morgan household until
'39 and then followed the example of her sisters.

The forming of Greene county brought on a contest
for the location of the county capital. The contest was short,
sharp and decisive. On February 20, 1821 — just a month
after the county was created by enactment — the five com-
missioners who had been named in the act met at a lone
cabin on the prairie and proceeded to consider the eligible
sites.

There were several of these. One was a beautiful mound
about three miles southwest of the present town of Car-
rollton. Fifty years afterward a somewhat florid descrip-
tion was written by a man who remembered it as it then was,
untouched by the hand of man, and he declared that "the
sun in all his wanderings had seldom shone upon a lovelier
spot of earth since the day on which the flaming sword was
placed at the gates of Eden." /The owner of that spot,
Thos. Hobson, confident that no other proposed site could
compete w^th his, had laid out a town on that mound and had
named it Mt. Pleasant.

But Hobson was an Englishman who had come out from
his native country only a short time before. The War of
1812 had ended, but it left more or less bitterness raukhng in
the breasts of these pioneers whose lives and homes had been
menaced by the Indian allies of the British. This probably
had something to do with the result of that contest. But
perhaps a greater factor in it was the personality and popu-
larity of the man who won.

The official report of the commissioners, as it appears in
the records of the county, states that — "after examining the
most eligible situation in said county, giving due weight and
attention to the considerations set forth as to present and
future population, etc." they had concluded that the most

213

suitable place for said seat of justice was a point 88 poles
south of the northeast corner of section 22, to'\\niship 10 north,
range 12 west of the Third principal meridian.

The land thus described and selected was owned by one
of the commissioners, but it is said that he I'efused to vote on
fixing the site. The other four were unanimous. The man
who did not vote and whose land became the site of Greene
county's capital, was Thomas Carlin, afterward sixth gov-
ernor of Illinois.

Local historians have been content to add that, after the
decision had been made, one of the commissioners paced fifty
yards to the west and said, "Here let the court house be
built ' ' ; that the town was immediately laid out and named
Carrollton.

Many have since wondered why the to'v^ai was not named
in honor of its founder, and why, a few years later, the county
seat of Macoupin was apparently so named. Several years
ago a descendant of Governor Carlin — a man who had never
been in the west — came out to visit the scene of his grand-
father's pioneering. Quite logically he steered his course to
Carlinville, and was puzzled to find there no trace of ancestral
records. I do not know why Carlinville was so named; why
Carrollton was not is partly at least a matter of tradition
only.

We can imagine those four other commissioners suggest-
ing that the town be named for Mr. Carlin, and we can inmgiue
him declining the honor ^\'ith the modesty of real greatness.
' * Suggest a name, then, ' ' they no doubt said to him. And it
is fairly well established that he did suggest the name. Him-
self a pioneer, he greatly admired those earlier pioneers who
laid the foundations of a nation in the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, and he especially loved the name of that signer of
the document who, in order that no British high executioner
would be put to the trouble of inquiring, wrote down his name
— "Charles Carroll of Carrollton."

And so he gave to the town a name, beautiful in itself,
honored in history, and significant of courage and fidelity to
principle.

214

Perhaps it would be well at this point to pause a bit in the
story itself, and introduce the cast of characters in this little
drama, "The Birth" — not of a Nation — ^but '*of a County."

Enter first a man on horseback, broad-shouldered, rough
and rugged, a rifle slung across the pommel of his saddle, a
hand shading his eyes, which gaze across an expanse of
prairie that ends at the horizon. What Canada's famous
mounted police have been to the lonely vastness of British
Columbia and Hudson's Bay country, the Rangers were to
IlHnois one hundred j^ears and more ago. When the Federal
government was unable to send troops to protect the settlers
in Illinois from Indian atrocities, encouraged by the British
during the War of 1812, the settlers themselves organized as
Rangers. One of the camps was at Edwardsville, and was in
command of Capt. Judy.

''For several years," says Clement L. Clapp in his his-
tory of Greene County, "these brave, determined men rode
over the bare and silent prairies for hundreds of miles, now
chasing a band of fleeing savages, now hurrying to the defense
of a threatened settlement. They were almost constanth^ in
the saddle, rarely slept under a roof, were independent of
civilization for food or comforts, and exercised almost super-
human vigilance in keeping the red men at bay. They were
familiar with every feature of Indian warfare and their deeds
of daring and endurance have been made the theme of many
a thrilhng poem or romantic tale.

In these expeditions against the Indians the Rangers
became probably the first white men to pass over the territory
that is now Greene county. They saw what splendid oppor-
tunities it offered for settlement — or would offer when the
Indians were finally driven out. To a pioneer, the ideal spot
for staking his claim was one that afforded, first of all, good
water; second, timber for building his cabin, and third a situ-
ation at the edge of a prairie, to avoid unnecessary clearing
for putting in crops. Proceeding northward from the Wood
river settlement, the hardy adventurers found no such com-
bination until they reached Macoupin creek. No less than a
dozen or fifteen of these Rangers from Fort Russell came to,

215

or crossed, the Macoupin to build their cabins on the very
frontier of civilization.

Three men stand out conspicuously in this band. They
were Samuel Thomas, Thomas Carlin and Thomas Rattan.

Samuel Thomas was the grandfather of Congressman
H. T. Rainey, who now represents the Twentieth congres-
sional district at Washington. Born in South Carolina in
1794, he began a race with civilization when he was eight
years old by going to Kentucky. In 1813, at the age of 19, he
set out on horseback for Illinois. After he and his two com-
panions crossed the Ohio river, they found that the settlers
had deserted their cabins and fled from the Indians. They
were not deterred from their purpose, however, and pushed
on to Wood river. When they arrived there Mr. Thomas
purchased a rifle on credit, in order to join the Rangers.

A few months later, while he was serving in Capt. Judy 's
company, the Wood river massacre occurred, and one of his
sisters and her six children were slain by the Indians. In
1816 Mr. Thomas visited what is now Greene county, picked
out the land on which he afterward settled, cut and stacked
some hay and made other improvements. Then he returned
to Wood river and the Indians burned his haystacks and
destroyed his improvements. For two years more he re-
mained at Wood river, and then in August, 1818, his desire to
be on the extreme edge of things led him northward again.
He was accompanied by Thomas Carlin and John W. Huitt, a
brother-in-law of Carlin. When they reached Macoupin creek,
Huitt was unfiling to put that barrier between himself and
civilization, and he stopped on the south side, while the other
two crossed the creek and went on. Three miles north of the
creek Thomas arrived at the spot he had selected two years
before. A beautiful grove and a clear spring of water had
figured in his choice. It is recorded that — "Here Mr. Thomas
killed a deer, cut a bee tree and engraved his name on the
bark of a monarch of the forest, to indicate that the land was
claimed." Then he built a cabin, and returned for his wife
and household goods. With these loaded on an ox cart, he

216

arrived at Ms new home November 9, 1818, and thus became
the first settler in Greene county north of the Macoupin.

Thomas Carlin was born near Shelbyville, Kentucky, in
1786. From earliest boyhood, he had a natural love of ad-
venture and was trained to endure the hardships of back-
woods hfe. In the vanguard of pioneering, he went first to
Missouri, then to IlHnois, coming here in time to serve through
the War of 1812 in the Rangers. After the war he operated
a ferry across the Mississippi some miles above St. Louis,
and while there he married Miss Rebecca Huitt. As previ-
ously stated, he came to Greene county with Samuel Thomas
in August, 1818, and when the latter paused to shoot a deer
and cut a bee tree at the spot where he was to build his cabin,
Carlin proceeded about three miles farther to the northeast.
It may be remarked here that those big, outdoor men of early
days liked to have neighbors, but they didn't want to be too
crowded to breathe. Late that fall or early in the spring of
1819, Carhn brought his vdie, mother and stepfather to this
spot and there built his cabin, the first dwelling place of white
people ^vithin the present Hmits of Carrollton. The frame
house he afterward built on that spot was torn down several
years ago, and there is nothing now to mark the place.

Carlin is described as a man of medium height, not
heavily built, but having a pair of powerful shoulders ; a man
of iron nerve and much natural shrewdness and skill in deal-
ing with his fello^vmen. His honesty and fair dealing was
beyond question, and he knew no fear. While he was register
of lands at Quincy, it is said he frequently drove over the
lonely road between Quincy and Carrollton, conveying a
wagon load of gold and silver — the proceeds of land sales —
and that these trips were sometimes made at night and alone.

After Greene county was organized Carhn was elected
its first sheriff. He was elected the first state senator from
the district comprising Pike and Greene counties, in 1824, and
served as senator in the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh Gen-
eral Assembhes. In 1838 he was elected sixth governor of
Illinois, at one of the most trjdng and critical periods in the
history of the State, and he acquitted himself with perhaps

STATUE OF GOV. CARLIJN

(GREENE COUNTY)

217

as much credit aud as little criticism as any man could have
done in that crisis. After retiring from public life he re-
turned to his home in Carrollton, and died there February
14, 1852. More than 100 years ago he built his cabin under a
great spreading tree ; and under another tree in our silent city
of the dead, a few rods from the site of the cabin, beneath
one of the plainest, least pretentious of marble shafts, now
rests his mortal remains. Within our court house square,
probably very near the spot where those five commissioners
made their decision, now stands a monument surmounted by
an imposing, full-length bronze statue of Governor Carlin,
erected by the State of Illinois in recognition of his service,
and dedicated by Governor Lowden on July 4, 1917.

Thomas Rattan, third in this trio of Rangers, also took
active part in the beginning of things in Greene county. It
may be remarked in passing, that Samuel Thomas, adventur-
ous youth, settled down to become a prosperous farmer and
the patriarch of a large and prominent family; that Carlin,
also adventurous youth, became the successful politician.
Rattan, possibly as much imbued mth the spirit of adventure
as the others, became the energetic builder and business man,
and had time also to enter politics. The three were types of
the men who made and developed, not only Greene, but every
county of the State.

Rattan built and kept the first log cabin hotel in Carroll-
ton ; built the court house that stood on the square for sixty
years; built and operated mills; bridged the Macoupin with
one of those old-fashioned wooden, boxed-up structures, that
remained even longer than the old court house. With all these
activities and a bit of farming on the side, he was drawn into
political life, and reached a seat in the General Assembly at
Vandalia two years ahead of Carlin, being elected representa-
tive at the first general election in 1822. As the county and
the people became more settled life became too monotonous
here for Thomas Rattan, and he moved to the great south-
west. In Texas he again became a pioneer, and died there
in 1854. I find it stated in a Texas volume of biography that
Rattan was a direct descendant of Gen. Nathaniel Greene,

218

for whom Greene county was named. Rattan's daughter,
Annie Eattan, born in Carrollton in 1828, married James W.
Throckmorton, one of the early governors of Texas.

Gen. Jacob Fry, one of the early settlers, became a resi-
dent in 1821, accepted Thomas Carlin's offer of a free lot if
he would build upon it, and began the first house in Carrollton
— a frame house, mind you, for he cut the timber and split it
into boards. But Rattan's log tavern has the credit of being
the first building completed, for Fry stopped his own work to
help Rattan. Fry was sheriff of the county for ten years, and
near the close of that period officiated as executioner at the
first public hanging in the county. Immediately after his un-
pleasant duty was performed, he mounted his horse and rode
away to join the company he had raised for the Black Hawk
war. In that war he became a colonel, and at its close was
made major general of the State militia. In 1827 he was ap-
pointed one of the Illinois and Michigan canal commissioners,
and in 1856, collector of customs at Chicago. In the Civil
war he commanded a regiment that did valiant service at
Shiloh.

The very last one of those earliest settlers passed over
into a New Country some twenty-odd years ago. Rowell
Hunnicutt was of a type different from the others I have de-
scribed. A year or two before he died, Mary Hartwell Cath-
erwood, author of "Old Kaskaskia," "The Romance of Bol-
lard, ' ' etc., visited Greene county and met and talked with the
old man. He came as a boy to help Samuel Thomas in cross-
ing the Macoupin, and his father settled in the bluffs over-
looking the Illinois river. To Mrs. Catherwood, in 1895, he
said:

"Yes, I am a wild man myself yet. I wish I could go to
a new country as this was in 1820. My father first moved his
family into a cave in the bluff, near a spring. The time of
the year was May. It was pretty living. We built our fire
against the back of the cave, and the smoke rolled along the
roof and went out at the cave door without any damage. This
land was a paradise when I could stand on the bluff and look
down in the river bottom and count fifty deer in sight. White

r,i:\. JACOB FI{Y

(GREENE COUNTY)

COL. E. D. BAkEll
(GREENE COUNTY)

219

men hadn't spoiled the country and turned everything to
dollars. Neighbors thought of what they could do for one
another, not of how they might take advantage, and the In-
dians were always honest." "Uncle Rowell" Hunnieutt, at
83, longed to hunt up the Indian tribes he had lived with and
near, back in the early '20s. Nothing would have pleased him
better than to slip back 10,000 years and be a cave man again.

About 1825 or '26 there arrived in Carrollton a family,
cultured but poverty-stricken. Baker by name. There were
several boys, and one of them, a lad of perhaps 12 or 14 years,
was destined to have his name writ large in the nation's his-
tory. Volumes have been printed about Edward Dickinson
Baker, and the Illinois State Historical Society has listened
to sketches of his life on more than one occasion, if I am not
mistaken. It would be impossible for me to add to his fame
or to pronounce a fitting eulogy at this time.

But Carrollton has not been given credit for its share in
his early life, and there have been conflicting statements about
his boyhood. Several writers have sent him from Belleville
to St. Louis in his young manhood and set him to driving a
dray there. It has been established by the testimony of old
residents of Carrollton that he was a mere boy when the fam-
ily came there, and that he attended school at a log school
house near the to^vn. The family lived in a small log house
near the public square. Moses 0. Bledsoe, then county clerk,
afterward clerk of the supreme court, took an interest in the
boy, loaned him books, assisted him with his studies and
finally suggested that he study law. Young Baker entered the
office of A. W. Cavarly, Carrollton 's first attorney, and was
admitted to practice law when he was about 19 years old. In
1831, when Baker was less than 21, he married the widow of
Samuel Lee, the first county clerk and recorder. The home
they occupied — built by Samuel Lee in 1829 — still stands as a
part of the Hodges office building on the north side of the
public square.

The year following his marriage, Baker went to the Black
Hawk war, and when it was over, he chose a novel and ad-
venturous way of returning home — floating down the Missis-

220

sippi 300 miles in a canoe, with an Indian for his only com-
panion.

It is said that Baker's father was one of the thirty-three
victims of the cholera epidemic in Carrollton in 1833. It has
been repeatedly stated that his mother died before the family
came to IlHnois. A citizen of Carrollton, still living, has told
me that he distinctly remembers Mrs. Baker, as well as the
rest of the family.

The story often told of Baker's boyhood — of how he was
once found in tears because he had discovered that, being of
English birth, he could never be president of the United
States, has been handed down in Carrollton as having actually
occurred there. Possibly it never occurred at all.

You already know how he came to Springfield and out-
shone the brightest intellects at the State capital; how he
went to the Pacific coast and made history there ; how he went
to the United States senate and met and put to shame the
eloquence of the secessionists ; and finally how he buckled on
the sword to meet secession in the field of battle, and fell at
Ball's BluflP.

"\\Tiile I am about the self-imposed and presumptuous
task of correcting history, let me say that the credit for pre-
venting bloodshed in the historic Lincoln-Shields duel belongs
to a Carrollton pioneer, according to the recollection of old
settlers. When James Shields challenged Abraham Lincoln
in September, 1842, on account of the publication of some
verses — which Lincoln did not write, but assumed responsi-
bility for — it was agreed that the duel be fought on an island
near Alton, broadswords to be the weapons. The local storj'
is that Lincoln and his second, Merryman, riding in a rickety
old buggy, behind a rather dilapidated horse, reached the
village, on the way to Alton, the evening before the fateful
day, and stopped for the night at a hotel. A detail of the
story is that during the evening Lincoln took a broadsword,
walked out to the edge of town, where a luxuriant patch of
tall ".iimpsons" were growing, and practiced sword exercise
for a half hour or so, to the almost utter destruction of the
"jimpson" patch.

JOHN RUSSELL

(GREENK COUNTY)

221

Lincoln had attended Greene county circuit court on sev-
eral occasions, and had a few quite intimate friends in the
to^^^l. One of these was R. W. English, who afterward moved
to Springfield. English and one or two others, perhaps, fol-
lowed Lincoln next morning to the "field of honor," and
persuaded the combatants to call the affair off. None of
Lincoln's biographers seem to have heard the Carrollton end
of the story.

Any account of the pioneers who helped in the making of
Greene county would be incomplete without some reference to
John Russell, the sage of Bluffdale, whose home, remote from
the haunts of men, was sought by savants and scientists,
even from the Old World. Russell was born in Vermont in
1793, and came to Greene county in 1828. The old home he
built under the Illinois bluffs still stands. He was a writer
of note, an educator of wide experience, and became editor
of the first Greene county newspaper, the Backwoodsman,
which was started in 1838 at Grafton (then in Greene county)
afterward published for a short time at Jerseyville, and
moved to Carrollton in 1841, where Mr. Russell's son-in-law,
A. S. Tilden, was its publisher. The publication came to an
untimely end late in the latter year, when, after it had pre-
sumed to rejoice over President Tyler's veto of the Bank bill,
somebody entered the office at night and dumped the forms
and type upon the floor. Russell died at Bluffdale in 1863.

Brigadier General William P. Carlin was one of the dis-
tinguished native sons of Greene county. He was a nephew
of Governor Carlin, and was bom on a farm a few miles from
Carrollton in 1829. In 1846 he was admitted to West Point
Military Academy, on recommendation of Senator Stephen A.
Douglas, graduated in 1850, gained much experience in Indian
warfare and had become a captain before the beginning of
the Civil war. He was appointed colonel of the Thirty-eighth
volunteer infantry in the summer of 1861 ; for gallantry at the
battle of Stone River was promoted to brigadier general, and
in 1863, for his distinguished services at Chickamauga, Chat-
tanooga and Atlanta, was brevetted major general. After the
war he was in command at several forts on the western fron-

222

tier, and retired from the service in 1893, He then built a
home in Carrollton, and died ten years later while returning
from a western trip. His military funeral on October 11,
1903, ■v\'ith the governor, other state officials and an escort of
militia in attendance, was an event in the more recent history
of Carrollton. The late General John M. Palmer, upon whose
staff General Carlin served in the Civil war, frequently re-
ferred to him as one of the bravest men he ever knew.

Others there were who came while Greene county was
still young whose names should be mentioned in this paper.
Charles Drury Hodges, a young la^we^ from Annapolis,
Maryland, stepped from the stage coach one bleak day in
November, 1833, and his dapper appearance made quite a
sensation in the quiet, homespun \T.llage. He hung out his
"shingle" in Carrollton; a few years later became county
judge ; was elected to congress ; served six years as circuit
judge, and was treasurer of the Alton, Jacksonville & Chicago
railroad, the first steamroad built through Greene county.

David Meade Woodson came also in the fall of 1833, from
Kentucky, became the law partner of Judge Hodges, went to
the legislature, was defeated for congress by Stephen A.
Douglas, was a member of the constitutional convention of
1847, and served nearly twenty years on the circuit bench.

The name of Samuel Willard is familiar to the Illinois
Historical Society. He came out from Boston in 1831, as a
boy ten years old, and his father taught school in Carrollton.
He lived in the town only during his boyhood, but with a boy's
investigating turn of mind, he became familiar mth the modes
of living and the primitive ways of doing things that were in
vogue in a pioneer conmiunity, and seventy-five years after-
Avard — in 1906 — he contributed to this society one of the most
interesting papers it has ever listened to.

All through the preparation of this paper there has con-
stantly come into my mind a bit of quotation from ancient
Instors' — from the Old Testament I believe it is —

"There were giants in those days."

' >^T^-

'<0m "^t^

Or-

JJ^^^^Ef^

/ ^^

D. M. WOODSON

GREENE CO.)

C. D. HODGES

(GREENE CO.)

GOV. CARLIN'S OLD HOUSE

(GREENE CO.)

223

Those giants who carved Egyptian temples out of solid
rock 3,000 or 4,000 years ago were not more remarkable in
achievement than the giants of intellect, and character, and
energy who carved counties, and states and a nation out of the
virgin soil of a new continent.

Think of the changes that have been wrought in a cen-
tury! Where Samuel Thomas drove his oxcart across the
untracked prairie, farmers now drive their big touring cars
along well kept roads. Within a mile or two of Rowell Hun-
nicutt's cave dwelling are now elegant farm houses, equipped
with all the modem improvements of Hghting, heating, sani-
tation and luxury. Where Edward D. Baker trudged to a log
school house are now being established community high
schools with the best equipment and most efficient faculty that
can be secured.

There were giants in those days. And miracles have been
wrought in a century. But let us not forget the giants in
contemplation and enjoyment of the miracles.

PARK COLLEGE AND ITS ILLINOIS FOUNDER

By Pauline Aston Hawley.

The traveler who finds his way up the road, and at the
very entrance of Park College Campus at Parkville, Missouri,
(quite witliin a suburban limit of Kansas City) discovers an
elm tree of such stately build, such symmetry of form, such
thickness of branch and twig (sequestered cloister for the
timid ones of the feathered family!) that he stands in com-
pellent admiration. Its richness and thickness of foliage give
it the hush of a cathedral; its hidden branches undisturbed
by the common wind. Calm and poised it stands, a sentinel,
its boughs reaching protectingly over a certain gray little
house on a bluff overlooking the Missouri river. Together the
house and the tree share secrets of the past, some of which
are written in the history of Missouri, and are transactions
important in the annals of the State — yea, in the history of
the world.

The little house, not always as gray nor so quiet, was the
scene of large hospitality in the days of 1855 when Colonel
George S. Park brought his New York bride to this pioneer
home. For her he planted gardens of roses and other rare
flowers. For her he set out orchards — and then with careful
thought for the years to come, he selected a straight young
elm and planted it close to the house where it would be pro-
tected from the south ^ind. A little daughter, the only child,
came to complete the happiness in this bit of Eden, and under
the ever widening branches she played with her dolls. But
my story has not to do with the tree, but with the man who
planted it and in vision saw it in its splendor of today.
Colonel Park was a man of many visions, but it is of his great
vision I would tell.

In a quaint hand-fashioned book with chipped wooden
covers, written on pages that are yellowed mth the years, in
Colonel Park's own hand writing I quote from his prayer of
May 15, 1834:

225

"Great and everlasting God . . . Graciously smile
upon our efforts to quicken the intellect. ' '

Again on another page in an address to "The Youth of
Jackson County" in 1839:

"Dear to me the cause of Liheity and virtue which alone
can be sustained by the promotion of knowledge. ' '

Again — "Man is bom to be educated. The very soil on
which he treads is endowed with a thousand capabilities for
production when excited by man's intelligence."

Like Lincoln, he studied and stored in his mind by the
fire-logs' glow or flickering candle — filling his hungering mind
Avdth knowledge of things about him, reaching out into history
and poetry, philosophy and ancient languages. His college
education was interrupted, but his longing for knowledge
never ceased until life itself had done so. For fifty years he
longed to found a college for the young men and women of
the Missouri Valley who, because of lack of means, could not
afford a college education elsewhere. In 1875 his ambition
became a realization, and through his longings, his prayers,
his unrelenting efforts, his generous gifts. Park College came
into being. But even his great vision was short-sighted in
the realization of what must have been once as a nebulous
dream. For today, crowning the hills about the home of its
founder, Park College stands with doors open not only to
those of the Missouri Valley, but to the whole world.

Park College is different from any other college — a dif-
ference that explains the applications that come from every-
where, and which also explains the fact that annually hun-
dreds are turned away for lack of room. For here no one
is denied entrance for lack of funds. Ambition,, character,
and a willingness to work at least three hours a day at any
task designated, are the qualifications. The dormitory accom-
modations take care of only three hundred fifty students —
hence the student body is a "selected" one. Scholarship
standards are high (Park is a member of the North Central
Association of American Colleges), and only those whose re-
ports show high grading are accepted. Park does not have a

226

restless, fluctuating faculty. Believing in the high Christian
ideals, the sterling worth of the place, these men have tied
themselves to the College, and having devoted their young
lives, now at prime are giving rich experience in their teach-
ing.

There is no time for Inter-Collegiate Athletics at Park —
so the healthy, spontaneous enthusiasm that accompanies
\dctories in the athletic field, finds its outlet over continued
victories at Inter-Collegiate Debate and Oratory. For Park
has been so in the habit of winning on the platform, that an
eagerness and tenseness permeates the whole College family
preceding a contest. And Park has its own time honored
fashion of celebrating a victorj^ which is not lacking in finesse
of detail. The citizenship of Parkville long ago reconciled
itself to "sitting up" and celebrating also when the Pajama
Parade starts out on its program of announcement.

The "Family Life" at Park is its distinct feature, of
course. There are eight dormitories for men and women,
each presided over by— not a matron — ^but a housemother —
there 's all the difference in the world ! These women are by
education, broad and cultured, of gentle breeding, and Chris-
tian character, well fitted to preside over the students. A
home atmosphere is maintained and the most careful delicate
thought given to the many problems which come up as in any
co-ed school. The girls do all the cooking, serving, and house-
work. And they are taught the better way of doing these
things. The boys, besides doing the daily chores (itself a
considerable feature for such a large family) have done much
toward the building projects of the Campus under capable
superintendents, and many students have found their lead to
a life work. Quoting a freshman's views of family work:
"Besides creating a better feeling of fellowship, it provides
physical exercise for most of the students, and I think the
good health record we have is partly due to the daily exercise
at Family Work. ' '

The devotional life at Park is emphasized. Recently a
student said to a new arrival, * ' I believe there are more good
people at Park than in any one place I know. ' ' In all the life

227

of the Campus, the teachings of Christ are the governing
principles. Park College believes in a broad culture — the
kind one absorbs A\ithout conscious effort. The importance of
social grace and courtesy are not lost sight of. The semin-
aries are glad to enroll Park men, finding them the sterling
typo. The foreign mission boards look to Park for men and
women volunteers, and as they go to far off countries, they
tell of their beloved Ahna Mater, and send native students to
her from their various stations. So Park is almost as cosmo-
politan as the world itself. Twelve countries and thirty states
are represented in the present enrollment. The average cash
payment by the students is small; an endowment commensu-
rate with the annual expense and upkeep of the College, is
still a far oft' thing even to the most optimistic trustee. But
while the endowment is slowly climbing, friends of Park scat-
tered over the country supply its needs with generous, pi'ayer-
ful gifts, and have done so faithfully through all these years
of its fruitful history. Its Alumni, loyal and loving as mem-
bers of a family, seem never to drift from the home feeling
the College has given them.

During his life time. Colonel Park fostered and gave to
the College not only time and money, and buildings and land,
but wise judgment and prayerful thought. Modest; it was
not his Avish that the College be named for him. He wrote
the charter, a document that shows marvelous safeguarding
of the interests of the College, and also chose the first Board
of Trustees. As an illustration of his thoroughgoing ideas
I quote from Section four of the Charter:

"It is the earnest desire of the friends of this institution
that it be established and built up by wisdom, and stand for-
ever and go on improving like the older institutions of Europe
and America. To accomplish this purpose it is suggested that
the Board of Trustees look most critically into the way things
are going and make wise provisions for future contingencies ;
if any trustee neglects such care and caution request him to
resign and appoint another. It is a positive wrong to be in-
dulgent to incapacity or inefficiency, to idleness, wastefulness
or any other unfitness. Let the eyes of these guardians pierce

228

every nook and corner and thereby insure wise and skillful
management of the institution. Let them provide the best
instructors and make the best provisions for the institution
their funds ^\ill permit, going no further, remembering that
the Lord 's work must be done better than our own. ' '

Although the last years of his life were spent in Magnolia,
Illinois, where he was a large land owner in that rich country,
his interest in the College grew unceasingly. The little girl
who played with her dolls under the tender shade of the young
elm tree is now a leader in the womanhood of Illinois, Mrs.
George A. Lawrence of Galesburg. Like her father she has
stood for the finest in patriotism, the fostering of everything
that is worth while. She is "widely kno'\\ai for what she has
been to state and country, and friend. She has taken up her
father's work. Both she and her husband are life members
of the Board of Trustees. They have given generously in
buildings and land, and to current expenses, and their large
giving has not kept them from constantly doing many things
that add to the pleasure and comfort of the Campus and to
individuals — the things that tell of her love and heart interest
in the work and workers.

Today the old ehn stands a splendid living monument to
the man who planted it and methinks its gently moving
branches whisper softly of his good deeds . . . "a cease-
less requiem." In antiphonal array the College buildings
thronged -with eager young life, speak imperishably of his
thought and generosity, and his willingness to serve God by
serving mankind; that was the impulse of Coloned Park's
being — that through him others might live.

RECOLLECTIONS OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS
IN HILLSBORO, ILLINOIS.

By John M. Whitehead

In the Lincoln-Douglas campaign both men made speeches
in Hillsboro. As I remember, Mr. Lincoln spoke first earlier
in the summer. There was a circus in town that day and the
committee having charge of the Lincoln meeting chartered
the "big top" and Mr. Lincoln delivered his speech in the
afternoon from one of the circus wagons. The reason for
this was the rain. It poured during the speech and beat upon
"the top" so heavil}^ at times that it was difficult to make
himself heard. I do not remember that he told many stories
and created much merriment. I remember him standing in
the wagon in the circus ring. I was a small boy and my father
had taken me ^\ith. him in the forenoon to the place, the old
"Lyceum," where other citizens had congregated to meet
Mr. Lincoln and so I had a very distinct impression of him
which has remained vnth. me all my Kfe. Eelatives and
friends of our family came from the farms of the vicinity to
attend the meeting and took dinner at our house. The occa-
sion was one of unusual interest to the conununity. The
fame of the great debater had spread abroad. My father
used to tell of the first speech he heard My. Lincoln make in
the old log court house at Hillsboro. A part of the building
remains covered Avith clapboards and occupied as a dwelling.
My father came into io^vii from his farm and seeing a crowd
around the court house he concluded to find out what was
going on. A political meeting was being held and one of the
well knoA\ni men of the day was talking. At the conclusion
of his speech a call for "Lincoln" came from the crowd.
Presently a tall, awkward, homespun sort of a young man
began to make his way to the front. He finally reached the
desired position and proceeded to make a speech. The time
was ' * away back yonder, ' ' perhaps in one of the exciting cam-
paigns of the '40s. I do not recall anything that my father
said about the speech except that he said "Lincoln caught the

230

crowd." All the circumstances were calculated ineffaceably
to impress upon a child's memory the principal occurrences
of the day. Up to the campaign of 1860 my father had been
an ardent democrat but from that time on he had no patience
with the democratic party.

There were a number of the old citizens of Hillsboro who
were life long acquaintances of Mr. Lincoln. Joseph T. Ec-
cles Avas a Kentuckian of the fine old type who had known
Mr. Lincolii from his youth up and was one of his trusted
advisers in that part of the countiy. I remember one cold
Sunday morning at the Presbyterian church I went mth my
father to the Sunday school, which preceded the church
service, and there were gathered around the stove Mr.. Eccles
and others who were interested in what he had to say about
his visit to Washington from which he had returned. By the
way, my father and Mr. Eccles were great chums. I remem-
ber my father asked Mr. Eccles if "Old Abe" knew him.
Mr. Eccles had a very heay\^ voice and a prolonged chuckle
when he laughed. He laughed and said, "Know me? I guess
he did! He took care of me at the White House in the old
fashioned way." Of course it wasn't my father's idea that
Mr. Lincoln could have forgotten his old friend Eccles but he
wanted to know if the old time cordiality continued. I do not
recall the details of the conversation except that Mr. Eccles
was extremely pleased -with his visit to Washington and v.ith
the President. He repeated his visits to Washington during
the administration and always came home full of interesting
things to tell his Hillsboro acquaintances.

The judge of the Circuit Court in that circuit was E. Y.
Rice, a Kentuckian of the old school, who had been long
acquainted mth Mr. Lincoln and associated with him in pro-
fessional activities, though opposed in politics.

The village tavern stood two blocks from my father's
home where all the lawyers of the circuit were wont to "put
up" when they came to Hillsboro to the term of court. I
remember distinctly many times seeing the members of the
bar sitting out on the porch or in the street with their feet
propped up against posts swapping stories and Lincoln was

231

often of that number. Among these lawyers were General
John M. Palmer, U. F. Linder, Anthony Thornton and many
others who obtained greater or less renown at the bar of
Ilhnois.

By the way, Mr. Douglas when he spoke in Hillsboro,
spoke briefly in the evening from the roof of the tavern porch
and he could be distinctly heard at my father's home. He had
a marv^elous voice. His principal speech was made in the
afternoon at the fair ground. When I was in Yale College
in the early seventies I remember hearing Blind Tom imper-
sonate Mr. Douglas. Not so many years had elapsed then
and the memories of Douglas were then fresher with me than
now. I could remember well his noble voice and was greatly
interested in Blind Tom's imitation of it. The older citizens
of that community were nearly all acquaintances of Mr. Lin-
coln, some were friends and others were very hostile, and so
I heard a great amount of discussion of the President and his
administration and of the conduct of the war among the
people.

On the morning that the news came of Mr. Lincoln's
death, I was going mth my father and the rest of the family
from our farm w^est of to^vn in a farm wagon to Hillsboro to
attend the funeral of a relative whose body was coming on the
morning train f ^om the southwest. One of our neighbors was
on his way home wearing the blue swallow-tail coat with brass
buttons, buff vest and silk hat of the style then worn by the
old fashioned gentleman. He stopped us and told us the news
of the President's death. His name was Mr. Cory. He had
been a hfelong democrat and poUtieally opposed to Lincoln,
but his voice was thick and his whole frame shook with emo-
tion. My father whipped up his horses and hurried on to
town hoping against hope that later news would not bear out
the earher reports of the morning that the President was
dead ; but alas ! the daily papers came in from St. Louis about
the middle of the day and we had to know that the President's
great earthly career was ended.

There was a meeting at the Presbyterian church the fol-
lowing Sunday evening to commemorate the life and public

232

services of Mr. Lincoln. The old-fashioned church was packed
to the doors. There was some formality in the opening of the
meeting but presently the opportunity was given to any to
speak from where they sat in the congregation. No experi-
ence in my childhood stands out more distinctly in my memory
than my recollection of that wonderful meeting. One after an-
other of the old men arose, some with the tears streaming
doA\ai their faces, and vdth trembling voices expressed their
love and admiration for the dead president and more particu-
larly for the man whom thej^ had kno\\ii so familiarly for so
many years. I particularly^ remember the remarks of one Mr.
Stickel, one of the guests of our home on the day when Mr.
Lincoln spoke in the circus tent.

On the day of Mr. Lincoln's funeral in Springfield busi-
ness was generally suspended in Hillsboro. Public ser\T.ces
were held in one of the churches and the people came from far
and near to show their respect for their great dead. It has
always been a matter of deep regret to me that I was not re-
quired by m}^ parents to accompany them to these memorial
ser^aces. Some childish whim beset my mind and I did not
care to go and was not required to go, and so all my life I have
felt a sense of loss on this account.

There was very bitter partisanship in our part of the
state. Many bitter things were said after Mr. Lincoln 's death
Avhich resulted in the severances of lifelong friendships and
business relations, but there is no part of the country with
which I am familiar where the memory of Abraham Lincoln
is today more tenderly cherished than in good old Montgom-
ery County.

In 1872 I went to New England for my education. I was
an object of special interest to many people there because I
was able to talk about Mr. Lincoln. I remember once talking
w^th Prof. Thomas A. Thatcher, professor of Latin in Yale,
and the manner of my early life and acquaintances came up
and among other things I made some reference to Mr. Lincoln.
The professor at once began to tell me of Mr. Lincoln's visit
to New Haven, of the speech he made in Old ]\Iusic Hall, of
the reception given to him by the citizens and of his o^^^l con-

233

versation with him. He spoke of Mr. Lincoln's friendly way
and when he was introduced to him he said, "Thatcher? Do
you happen to be a relative of Congressman Thatcher of Kan-
sas who was in Congress when I was?" (referring to his
early one-term experience in Congress). Professor Thatcher
narrated a great many other things that passed between him
and Mr. Lincoln and his admiration and love for the man were
unbounded. This was typical of the estimation in which Mr.
Lincoln was everywhere held in New England.

THE NORTHERN BOUNDARY LINE OF ILLINOIS
SURVEYED BY HIRAM ROUNTREE

The question is asked among Illinois historians: "Who
surveyed the northern boundary of Illinois?" In the recent
history of Montgomery county, written by A. T. Strange of
Hillsboro, the question is answered in a way that is of more
than ordinary interest to the people of Montgomery county,
for Mr. Strange insists that Hiram Rountree, one of the most
prominent pioneers of Montgomery countj'^, and for many
years a resident of Hillsboro, was actually the man who did
most of the work which proved of so great importance in la-
ter years.

In the history, Mr. Strange says: "Who surveyed the
Northern Boundary of Illinois'? This question is asked, be-
cause apparently, an injustice has been done our most deserv-
ing pioneer, in not accrediting to him the part he performed in
a most important and difficult state work. Hiram Rountree
certainly was one of three commissioners (and possibly the
most active of the three) appointed to survey and mark the
boundary line between Illinois and Wisconsin. But in the
reports as submitted to the Department at Washington, no
mention seems to be made of his participation in the work.
Fi'om a mass of correspondence, conducted in the main by
Hon. I. S. Blackwelder (now of Chicago), in relation to this
matter, we have tried to prepare a summary of the facts and
venture some deductions therefrom.'

"Mr. Blackwelder in a letter to Mr. Strange under date
of October 31, 1914, said: 'The subject (of this survey)
was referred to several times in my conversations with Mr.
Rountree and my recollection is as clear as noonday that
he stated to me that he was the commissioner appointed
by the state of Illinois to establish this boundary line,
and that in doing so he crossed the state five times, ending
finally at a point on the Mississippi River where a great stone
was placed to mark the western end of the line. His descrip-

235

tions of the hardships encountered, of marching through the
tall grass and heaw underbrush, and s^^'imming rivers, were
so graphic that it made a deep impression on my mind and
those who knew Judge Rountree, knew him as a most truth-
ful and conscientious man, who would make no statement of
this kind which was not true.'

"In an obituary' notice published in a Hillsboro paper
after his death in 1873, we find the follo^ving: 'In 1830-1831,
he with others was appointed under the administration of
General Jackson, commissioner to view and mark out the
northern boundary line of Illinois, which service he fully per-
formed.'

"In Reynolds' pioneer history of Illinois, we find these
words: 'Messinger was appointed with a gentleman of Hills-
boro to survey on the part of the state of Illinois, the northern
limits of the state, Lucius Lvons on the part of the United
States.'

"The report of Mr. Messinger was dated January 29,
1833. It shows that Mr. Daniel R. Davis, upon the part of the
United States, and Mr. AndrcAv Brailey, on the part of the
United States, were assistants ; Mr. Brailey, it will be remem-
bered, was a son-in-law of Jesse Townsend, the first Presby-
teria?! minister in Montgomery county and was evidently
appointed on the recommendation of Mr. Rountree, who knew
him well. From the report as given, it Avas stated that the
work was not completed in 1831, on account of cold weather
setting in on them. In May, 1832, Judge Rountree went into
the Black Hawk war at the head of a company of volunteers,
but was mustered out in August of the same year. From all
available evidence, he resumed the work on the boundary line
after his return from the Black Hawk war, as it would have
been physically impossible to have run a line five times on
foot and horseback across the state in 1831, after the October
meeting at Galena and the closing of the winter. The report
states that the stone which was set to mark the end of the
sur^^ey was several feet long and estimated to weigh five tons.
This corresponds with Mr. Rountree 's statement to Mr.
Blackwelder, and shows that Mr. Rountree was present when

236

the work was completed else he could not have said the west-
ern and concluding end of the survey 'was marked by a great
stone. '

' ' Now from the above quotations it is perfectly clear that
Mr. Rountree was appointed as one of the commissioners.
"V^Tiile the act of Congress hereafter referred to, seems to
provide for one of the commissioners to be from Wisconsin,
there is no mention of such a commissioner ever participating
in this work, in the report or correspondence consulted. Mr.
Blackwelder states that Judge Rountree told him they waited
for the Wisconsin commissioner to arrive but not getting
there, he proceeded -without him. The inference is that Mes-
singer, Rountree and Lyons constituted the whole commission.

"The next question is who did the work. The act of
Congress under which this survey was to be made was passed
by Congress April 18, 1831, and included boundaries in Ala-
bama, Illinois and other controverted lines. Mr. Lucius Lyons,
the United States commissioner, was a resident of Detroit,
Mich., and his control apparently was general, rather than lo-
cal, and he died before the completion of the work. Mr. Black-
welder says 'he died about the time the party was to begin the
work.' It is therefore apparent that he never signed the re-
port personally and that his signature was merely attached
to credit him vnth the position he held for the United States.
In the report of the commission as signed by Messinger with
Lyons' name attached, they say: 'They (the commissioners)
met at Galena in the latter part of October 1831, preparatory
to commencing the survey which is just now completed. '

"Another statement made by Mr. Rountree to Mr. Black-
welder was that while 'awaiting the coming of the Wisconsin
commissioner they spent several weeks in making astronomi-
cal observations. ' In the report as made by Mr. Messinger, he
used almost the same words, when he says, 'more than a
month had elapsed before a survey could be made to the entire
satisfaction of the board.' As shomng the accuracy of Mr.
Rountree 's statement, he relates that the surve)^ extended
from the Mississippi river to Lake Michigan, while the report
of Mr, Messinger is less definite as to the lake end of the work.

237

It seems apparent that Mr. Rountree was pi'esent and partici-
pated in all of the work unless it might have been a series of
lines run on the western end and before leaving there, it is
stated, that only one surveyor was retained, he being the Illi-
nois surveyor, who might have been either Messinger, Roun-
tree or Brailey, as all were surveyors. It is the opinion of
Mr. Strange and Mr. Blackwelder that when the time came for
making the report in January, 1833, Mr. Lyons being dead,
his name was attached as a matter of form, and, Mr. Rountree
not being present, Mr. Messinger did not assume the privilege
of signing his name and the treasury department accepted
and filed the report as submitted without requiring the sig-
nature of Mr. Rountree.* While an injustice was done Mr.
Rountree in omitting liis approval of the report, and his sig-
nature thereto, we do not assert that such was an intentional
wrong; on the other hand we think the report was a hastily
prepared statement made with respect to the requirements of
the statute and merely to comply vnth the requirements of
the United States authorities."

Mr. Strange and Mr. Blackwelder are to be commended
for ferreting out these facts which are so valuable to Mont-
gomery county history. It is well known in this community
that Mr. Strange, the author of the history, has spent several
years in gathering facts and correspondence relating to
county history.

Mr. Blackwelder was county clerk of Montgomery county
from December 3, 1861, to December 3, 1865. He was consid-
erably less than 22 years old when he was sworn into office and
the Secretary of State told him he was the youngest man who
ever held the position in the state. Later he went to Chicago
and became president of the Western Insurance Union in 1903
and 1904. He has been prominent in community and insurance
work in Chicago for many years.

•The Hon. Elam L. Clarke of Waukegan, 111., who has made an intensive study of
the matter of the northern boundary line of Illinois thinks that Mr. Rountree resigned
on account of illness and that Mr. Messinger was appointed in his place.

EDITORIALS

JOURNAL OF
THE ILLINOIS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Published Quarterly by the Society at Springfield, Illinois.
JESSIE PALMER WEBER, EDITOR.

Associate Editors:

George W. Smith Andrew Russel

H. W. Clendenin Edward C. Page

Applications for membership in the Society may be sent to the Secretary of the

Society, Mrs. Jessie Palmer Weber, Springfield, Ilhnois.

Membership Fee, One Dollar — Paid Annually. Life Membership, $25.00

Vol. XIII July, 1920 No. 2

ANNUAL MEETING ILLINOIS STATE HISTORICAL
SOCIETY

The twenty-first annual meeting of the Illinois State His-
torical Society was held in the Senate Chamber, in the Cap-
itol Building on Friday, May 14, 1920. Dr. 0. L. Schmidt,
the president of the Society, presided over all sessions of the
meeting.

The program as announced in the April number of the
Journal was carried out with some additions. At the annual
luncheon at the St. Nicholas Hotel the Honorable Rufus C.
Dawes, a member of the Historical Society and now serving
as a member of the State Constitutional Convention, taUced
to the Society about what a State Constitution should be.
The address of Mr. Dawes was a notable one in the history
of the Society. It was brief, but it covered the subject
clearly, and was delivered in a most pleasant and forceful
manner in simple and graceful English. Mr. Dawes explained
the difference between organic law and statute law in so clear
and plain a manner as to make the difference clearly under-
stood by all who had the pleasure of listening to the address.

The annual address was presented at the evening ses-
sion by the Honorable Oliver A. Harker, of the University
of Illinois.

242

The subject of the address was, "Fifty Years with the
Bench and Bar of Southern Illinois."

Judge Harker, though only seventeen years of age in
1863, enlisted as a private in the 67th Illinois Volunteer Regi-
ment in the Civil War. After the close of the war he at-
tended college, and began the practice of law in Vienna, 111.,
in 1870, and from that time until 1897 was actively engaged
in his profession either as a practicing attorney or a judge
on the bench of Southern Illinois.

Since 1897 he has been connected with the Law Depart-
ment of the University of Illinois. Judge Harker is well
versed in the history of the State and his fifty years ' service
as a lawyer and judge has furnished him with a most interest-
ing fund of anecdotes and reminiscences. He gave the His-
torical Society the benefit of this rich store of knowledge in
his address, which was an interesting account of law^'ers,
judges, and cases at law in Illinois during the past half
century.

Other addresses were presented by Mrs. Edna Arm-
strong Tucker of Rock Island; Mr. Charles Bradshaw of Car-
rollton; Miss Mary E. McDowell of Chicago; Prof. Arthur
C. Cole of the University of Illinois and Mrs. Grace Wilbur
Trout. All of these papers were prepared with great care
and delivered in an excellent maimer.

Members of the Society are urged to attend the Annual
meetings and special meetings.

Springfield is a favorite town for conventions of state
associations, and the month of May is a favorite month in
which to hold such conventions. Under its constitution the
State Historical Society must hold its annual meeting in May,
of each year. The directors of the Society are empowered
by the constitution to select the exact date in May for the
meeting. The program committee in reconunending to the
directors a date for the meeting tries to avoid conflictins: with

243

conventions, but it happened this year that the IlHnois State
Music Teachers' Association was in session at this time, as
was a convention of the Disciples or Christian Church.

On the day of the Annual meeting of the Society, the
Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra was in the city as a part
of the exercises of the Music Teachers' Convention, and pop-
ular concerts were given both afternoon and evening. The
citizens of Springfield very liberally subscribed for tickets
to these fine concerts, both on account of the high quahty of
the entertainments and their desire to encourage in every
way the music teachers of the State.

The concerts given at the State Arsenal at popular prices,
of course drew large crowds, and the people attending
them were the ones who usually attend the sessions of the
Historical Society. In spite of these unusual attractions,
the members of the Historical Society were in the main, faith-
ful in their attendance upon the Society's annual meeting.
This is especially true of members residing away from
Springfield.

The music at the luncheon was furnished by John L.
Taylor's orchestra, which played selections of old time and
poi^ular music. Mrs. Gary Westenberger sang the Illinois
Centennial songs at the luncheon. She also sang at the after-
noon session and was, as usual, received with pleasure. Mrs.
"Westenberger is a favorite with the Historical Society, on
account of her fine voice, her pleasing and appropriate selec-
tions of songs for the meetings, and especially for her un-
failing interest in the Society and her readiness at all times
to favor it with her charming singing.

The music at the evening session consisted of two groups
of songs by Miss Rebecca Scheibel. Miss Scheibel has a so-
prano voice of unusual beauty and power, and her singing
was greatly enjoyed by the Historical Society.

ILLINOIS IN THE WORLD WAR

The state of Illinois is using its best efforts to collect and
preserve the history of its participation in the great World
War.

An appropriation was made by the Fifty-first General
Assembly to the Illinois State Historical Library which au-
thorized and enabled the Library to organize a War Record
section. Mr. Wayne E. Stevens, a member of the Historical
Society, who has frequently contributed to the Journal was
made secretary of this department of the work of the Histori-
cal Library. Mr. Stevens served during the war in the depart-
ment of Historical Service in Washington and is well fitted
and equipped for the work. He began his work for the Library
about a year ago. He is assisted by Miss Marguerite E.
Jenison, who was also employed in the war history service.
It is hoped to collect and classify the work done in each county
wdtli special reference to the work of auxiliary organizations
such as the Red Cross, Liberty Loans, War Savings, food
and fuel conservation, war gardens, children's gardens and
other such important agencies.

The records of the IlHnois State Council of Defense will
also be turned over to the Historical Library for permanent
preservation.

The work throughout the state is well under way and the
Journal urges the members of the Historical Society to give
to it hearty co-operation and every possible assistance. Sug-
gestions will be welcomed.

The United States departments at Washington are to be
carefully searched for the record of the part taken by Illinois
commercial concerns in the war Avork. A list of the war con-
tracts filled by Illinois firms and individuals \\ill be secured,
with a brief history of the service and its use and magnitude.

This is, of course, in addition to the purely military his-
tory in which the Library will co-operate with the Adjutant
General of the State. The plan of the Library is to publish at
least two volumes. One to contain the statistical material just
mentioned; the other to contain copies of letters and diaries
written while in the service by our soldiers, with such other ma-
terial as will properly accompany these personal documents.

DR. DAVID KINLEY

Elected to the Presidency of the Univebsity of Illinois

Dr. David Kinley, acting president of the University of
Illinois, was elected to the presidency at a meeting of the
Board of Trustees at the Blackstone Hotel, Chicago, June 2,
1920.

Dr. Kinley has been acting as president since last July,
when Dr. James took a leave of absence because of illness.
The formal inauguration of Dr. Kinley mil probably take
place in September, when Dr. James will be made president
emeritus.

Dr. Kinley was bom in Scotland in 1861, and came to the
United States eleven years later vnth. his parents. They
settled in Andover, Mass., where Dr. Kinley attended school.
He graduated from Yale University in 1884, and was made
principal of the North Andover, Mass., high school, where
he remained until 1890. In 1891 and 1892 he was a teacher
of history in the Johns Hopkins University and instructor
in economics and logic in the Baltimore Woman's College. He
taught economics in the University of Wisconsin in 1893, after
which he joined the faculty of the University of Illinois as an
assistant professor in economics. He was made a full pro-
fessor a year later and also dean of the college of Literature
and Arts.

Still retaining the chair of economics, he organized
courses in business training in 1902, and it was principally
through his efforts that the college of Commerce came into
being. It was his idea and his energy and administrative
abiUty principally which shaped the curriculum.

Dr. Kinley is an authority on finance and is the author of
several books on the subject.

In 1910 Dr. Kinley was appointed one of the delegates
to the Fourth International Conference of American States
at Buenos Aires, and after that was for a brief time, United
States minister on special mission to Chile. He is a member
of the committee on research in economics and history of the

246

Carnegie endo^^^nent for International Peace. He is also an
honorary member of the faculty of the University of Santiago,
Chile, and of economic societies in various parts of the world.

With the election of a president the trustees will complete
plans to obtain at the next session of the legislature, legisla-
tion increasing the University's special tax one-third. The
trustees also want a special appropriation of $10,000,000 for
buildings, laboratories, shops and equipment, to be spent at
the rate of $1,000,000 annually.

The special tax for the university was one mill on each
dollar of the taxable property of the state. This was reduced
to two-thirds of a mill last July after the valuations were in-
creased one-third. "That action gives us approximately the
same amount of money," said Robert F. Carr, president of
the board of trustees. "Our income is about $2,500,000 an-
nually. But unless we are able to increase it by a considerable
amount, we shall be badly crippled."

There are about 10,000 students registered this year. The
faculty numbers between 700 and 800.

Alumni associations in every city in Illinois as well as the
commercial organizations and club women will be enlisted in
the campaign to obtain legislation.

Doctor Kinley has been acting president of the Univers-
ity of Illinois since President Edmund J. James resigned. He
has been appointed president of the university and formally
accepted the appointment June 15, 1920.

MEMORIAL DAY PROCLAMATION

Of Governor Frank 0. Lowden, May 12, 1920

"Again, with hearts united, we approach our National
Memorial Day. It has become the great occasion among our
people for the expression of patriotic sentiment. The glowing
pages of glorious history are again read. Over the grave of
every American veteran flies the flag. The appearance in uni-
form of soldiers of three wars of the republic stirs the youth
to increased love of country and stimulates their imagination
to deeds of heroism and valor. The tender recollections of the
honored dead inspire renewed devotion to the high ideals for
which, in the sunny south, in the islands of the sea or on
Flanders field they gave their all.

"In many homes there are lonely hearts because of costly
sacrifices made in the great war from which we have only re-
cently emerged. In that war our people were united as never
before in our history. Everything which tended to separate
them into groups on account of race, religion, residence, or
rank, was forgotten in the common desire to serve best the
interest of countrJ^ Now again we find ourselves distracted
by conflicting motives. The great wave of war-bred pa-
triotism seems to have broken up on the rocks of selfishness.
But this clash of opinions and interest must and will give
way. The clear note of national spirit will soon be heard
again above the present discordant sounds.

"Memorial day brings to the mind and heart of the
people renewed recognition of a common heritage and a com-
mon obligation. Respect for its dead exalts a nation above
selfish ambition and strife. Memorial day of 1920 might well
be notable in our annals if it were possible to recapture that
spirit of united loyalty and patriotism which characterized
the world war.

* ' I urge that on the coming Memorial day the citizens of
IlUnois, with gratitude for the past and with faith in the
future, renew their devotion to Americans ideals as with
fragrant flowers they remember our patriotic dead. ' '

ELIHU EOOT

Presents Liitcoln Statue to the British People

Elilm Root, who recently took part in the work of the
commission of jurists at The Hague for the establishment of a
permanent international Court of Justice, on July 28, formally
presented to the British people the St. Gaudens Statue of
Lincoln in Canning Square, as a gift from America, and later
the statue was unveiled.

Premier Lloyd George delivered the speech of acceptance.
The presentation was made in the presence of a distinguished
audience in the central hall of Westminster, with Viscount
Bryce, former British ambassador to the United States pre-
siding. The event was widely heralded in the British press as
further cementing Anglo-American friendship.

DR. JAMES W. GARNER OF UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

To Deliver Series of Lectures in Paris

Dr. James W. Garner, head of the department of political
science in the University of Illinois, and a recognized author-
ity on international law, has been chosen to deliver a series of
lectures in Paris and the French provinces under the James
Hazen Hyde foundation.

Dr. Garner will sail in September to begin his new work.

MISS NELLIE WALKER

Appointed on the State Art Commission

Miss Nellie V. Walker, the Chicago sculptor, was ap-
pointed by Governor Lowden, as a member of the State Board
of Art Advisers, succeeding Albin Polasek of the Art
Institute.

Miss Walker came to Chicago from Moulton, Iowa, in
1900 to study at the Institute as a pupil of Lorado Taft and
C. J. MulUgan. Later she became a teacher and her work
began to win wide recognition and prizes.

249

One of her earlier works was a bust of Senator A. B.
Cummins, the govemor of Iowa.

Miss Walker is the sculptor of the bronze relief placque
representing an Illinois ranger or soldier of the Territorial
Period, 1809-1818. This tablet was erected by the state of
Illinois to the memory of the Illinois Rangers in the war of
1812. The legislature appropriated twelve hundred dollars
($1,200) for this tablet. It was dedicated January 12, 1915.
The Illinois Daughters of 1812 had charge of the dedicatory
exercises. The tablet is placed on the north wall of the State
Library in the Capitol Building.

CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Raises First $50,000 for Gunther CoiiLECTioiT

At a meeting of the women's committee of the C. F.
Gunther collection at the Chicago Historical Society, Mrs.
George A. Carpenter, chairman, announced the completion of
the first $50,000 of the fund for the purchase of the collection
by the society. July 1st was set as the date by which the
money must be raised.

The collection which contains relics and heii'looms of the
Lincoln and Washington families, and many valuable manu-
scripts, is being bought by the Society for $150,000.

Among those at the meeting who will aid in the collection
of the balance of the purchase price, are Mrs. Hamilton Mc-
Cormick, Mrs. Samuel Insull, Mrs. William Burley, Mrs.
Bronson Peck, Miss Agnes Foreman, Miss Estelle Ward, and
Miss Caroline M. Mcllvaine.

MISS HARRIET MONROE AND OTHERS
Given Degree at Baylor Ukiversity, Texas.

Miss Harriet Monroe, editor of Poetry Magazine, re-
ceived the degree of Litt. D., at the Diamond Jubilee of Bay-
lor University, Waco, Texas, June 16. Edwin Markham and
Vachel Lindsay were other poets who received similar de-
grees.

SEYMOUR M. STONE, ARTIST

Seymour M. Stone, the Chicago artist, who began his
painting career along Canal Street, using wagons for his
initial efforts, has just completed portraits of the Secretary
of War and Mrs. Newton D. Baker. He is now at work on a
portrait of Secretary of State, Colby.

The first exhibition of his work is being held at the
Corcoran Art Gallery in Washington and includes portraits
of members of the diplomatic corps and their wives and a
number of the members of European royalty.

Mr. Stone is forty years old. In England he was hailed
as "the new genius," his painting "Parsifal" attracting wide
attention.

MEETING OF ART EXTENSION COMMITTEE
OF THE BETTER COMMUNITY MOVEMENT

Art patrons from all over the state gathered at the Art
Institute in Chicago, July 22, 1920, for a three days' meeting
of the newly organized Art Extension committee of the better
community movement fostered by the University of Illinois.
Lorado Taft, chairman of the committee, delivered a lecture
in Mandel Hall at the University of Chicago on the afternoon
of the twenty-second.

The committee proposes to provide lectures on com-
munity improvement and art, promote landscape gardening,
and foster the establishment of beautification of town squares
and school yards.

Prof. R. E. Hieronymus is co-operator and Charles A.
Bemiett of Peoria is executive secretary of the committee.
Other members are : Miss Katherine Dickinson, Alton, 111.,
James M. Cowan, Aurora, 111., E. M. Evans, Bloomington,
111., Miss Mary M. Wetmore, Champaign, 111., Mrs. Julia
Hegeler, Danville, 111., George LudAvig, Danville, 111., Robert
W. Lahr, Decatur, 111., Miss Carmen A. Trimmer, East St.
Louis, 111., Mrs. Leah C. Pearsall, Elgin, 111., Mrs. Florence

251

Wilkens Furst, Freeport, 111., Miss Ella Trabue, Jacksonville,
111., Mrs. Adele Fay "Williams, Joliet, 111., Mrs. Bessie F. Dun-
lap, Kankakee, 111., Miss Effie Doan, LaSalle, 111., Mrs. Julia
Proctor White, Peoria, 111., Mrs. Howard H. Priestley, Prince-
ton, 111., Mrs. Mary E. Beatty, Quincy, 111., Mrs. Myra H. Will-
son, Virden, 111., Mrs. Thurlow G. Essington, Streator, 111.

SOME INTERESTING FACTS

Suggested by the Article on "The Rise of the Methodist

Episcopal Church," by John D. Baknhart, Jr.

Springfield, Mass.
Mrs. Jessie Palmer Weber,
Secretary Illinois Historical Society.
Springfield, 111.
Dear Madam:

In the July, 1919, issue of the Journal appears an article
by John D. Barnhart, entitled "The Rise of the Methodist
Episcopal Church," etc. On page 151, the last paragraph
reads, "In 1788 Bishop Asburj^ first crossed the mountains
in his travels. During his lifetime he crossed them sixty
times. The first conference beyond the mountains was held
in May at Half Acres and Keywoods."

The footnote at this point reads: "The location of these
places is disputed. All are agreed that they are beyond the
mountains either in Virginia or Tennessee."

I have recently been reading "Holston Methodism," by
R. N. Price. Volume 1, page 113, gives the following infor-
mation: "In the history of the first conference, Keywood's
and Huffaker's have been intimately associated and some-
times confounded. The second conference certainly known to
have been held in the Holston country was held at Huff aker 's
in 1792. It was held in the residence of Michael Hutfaker,
grandfather of the late Rev. J. N. S. Huffaker, of the Holston
Conference, South • • • * The Huffaker place has for
many years been known as the Greenfield place, and in 1888

252

was the property of James L. White of Abingdon, Va. At
that time this house was still standing and in a tolerably good
state of preservation. The writer had the honor of occupying
a room in it during the three days of the Centennial Anni-
versary. The locomotive thunders over the soil of the Huf-
faker f aiTn in its daily trips between Saltville and other points
on the Norfolk and Western railway. ***** Bishop
Asbury writing in his journal of the Keywood Conference
says 'Came to Half acre's and Kejnvoods, w^here we held con-
ference three days.' The bishop commits the not unusual
blunder of spelhng Huffaker 'Half acre.' "

On page 156 of this same volume Bishop Asbury says,
"Friday, May 12, rode to Half acres, about forty miles, and
came in about 11 o'clock. Saturday, Sunday and Monday,
13th, 14th, 15th (1792), we were engaged in the business of
Holstein Conference."

Volume V, page 368, is the follomng, "Those who are
familiar with the Holston Methodist history know that the
first Methodist Conference west of the Alleghenies was held
by Bishop Asbury at the residence of Stephen Ke>"wood, in
Washington county, Va., May 13, 14 and 15, 1788. The Key-
wood place was some two miles south of Saltville. On May
13 and 14, 1888, the one-hundredth anniversary of this con-
ference was celebrated at Mahanaim church, which stood near
the place of the holding of the Huffaker Conference in 1792.
* * * * Mahanaim church is a mile and a half from the
old Keywood residence and a half mile from the Huffaker
home. The lot on which this church stands was deeded to the
Methodist church by Michael Huffaker ' to the end of time. ' ' '

There is little doubt that the name of Halfacre and Huf-
faker are the same. It has been written in church records
since, misspelled similarly. The grandson of this Michael
Hutf aker, the Eev. J. N. S. Huffaker, was a well known man in.
the Methodist church and colleges of the South. His family
identify the second conference as having been held at Huf-
faker 's.

This bit of historical matter is the more interesting when
it is known that two brothers of this same Michael Huffaker

253

were early Illinois pioneers. One, named Jacob Huffaker, fol-
lowed his son, Michael, to Morgan county in 1826. The other
one settled in Bureau county. Strange to say, neither of
these, so far as known, was a member of the Methodist church.

My personal interest in the pioneering Huffakers hes in
the fact that the Michael who settled in Morgan county near
Jacksonville was my grandfather.

Very truly, M. H. Geassly.

M. H. Grassly,
4 Virginia Street,
Springfield, Mass.

KNOX COLLEGE, GALESBURG, ILLINOIS,

Confers Honokaky Degrees Upon Illinois Women

Mrs. Joseph T. Bowen of Chicago, was given the honor-
ary degree of Master of Arts, at Knox college, for her service
for pubhc welfare, and as a leader of the 700,000 women she
registered for war service in IlUnois. Another woman. Dr.
DeUa Rice Matheny of Galesburg, was similarly honored for
her service for child welfare in Knox county during the war
and for her past service in pubhc health in her community.

ROCKFORD COLLEGE, ROCKFORD, ILL.,

Receives Gift of $10,000

Among the gifts announced at Rockford College, June 3,
was one of $10,000 from Mrs. Catherine Waugh McCuUoch,
of Evanston, IlHnois.

ILLINOIS COLLEGES RECEIVE GIFTS

Dr. Wallace Buttrick of the general education board of
New York announced on June 4, the gift to Illinois College,
Jacksonville, of $125,000, and to the IlUnois Women's College
of Jacksonville, $133,000 for increases in teachers' salaries.

CHICAGO WOMAN EEPEESENTS CHICAGO CHAP-
TER OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF
ENGINEERS AT SCIENTIFIC CONGRESS
IN HONOLULU

Miss Florence King, consulting engineer and patent at-
torney, will represent Chicago Chapter of the American As-
sociation of Engineers at the Pan-Pacific Congress to be held
in Honolulu, Hawaii, Aug. 2 to 20. Miss King is the only certi-
fied woman member of the association. For twenty-five years
she has been engaged in Chicago as a consulting engineer of
mechanic design and construction, as attorney and solicitor of
patents.

COLONIAL DAMES CONTRIBUTE $1,215.00
Toward Purchase of Gunther Collection

Miss Caroline M. Mcllvaine, secretary of the Chicago
Historical Society, has received a check for $1,215 from the
Illinois Society of Colonial Dames of America through its
president, Mrs. Paul Blatchford, of Oak Park. The amount
will apply on the first payment of $50,000 toward the purchase
price of $150,000 for the Gunther collection of historical docu-
ments and relics.

Mrs. Blatchford wrote that the Colonial Dames consider
the Historical Society the most vital of any aid to be had in
Chicago for the teaching of Americanism.

The teas which are being held in the society rooms on
alternate Wednesdays will be continued through the summer,
and plans mil be discussed for raising the remainder of the

purchase price.

MRS. LOUISE GREGORY
Wipe of the First President of the University of Illinois,

Dies

Mrs. Louise Gregory, wife of the first president of the
University of Illinois died at LaFayette, Ind., May 1st, 1920.
Mrs. Gregory was the first woman of the faculty of the Uni-
versity of Illinois. In 1873 she came to the University as pro-
fessor of home economics. Mrs. Gregory was buried in Ur-
bana, Illinois.

DR. ACHILLES DAVIS OF WESLEY HOSPITAL, DIES

Dr. Achilles Davis, one of the most widely known phy-
sicians and surgeons in the country, and a former member
of the faculty of Northwestern University, died at his home
in Chicago, May 3. Dr. Davis was born at Lowell, Ind., in
1874. He served during the war as a member of the staff of
the Wesley Memorial Hospital. His widow, who was Miss
Ella Barker of Rochester, Minn., survives.

JUDGE WILLIAM P. SLOAN

Judge William P. Sloan, a well known financier and
attorney, died at Golconda, 111., June 29, 1920. He was at
one time law partner of Hon. James A. Rose, who was secre-
tary of state of IlKnois, 1897-1912.

DEATH OF ELLIOT FLOWER

Elliot Flower, author of books and magazine stories, and
at one time reporter and editor in the employ of the Chicago
Tribune, died at his home in Coronado Beach, Cal., July 4th.
He was 57 years old. He is survived by his mother, Mrs. Lucy
L. Flower, for whom the Lucy Flower Technical School in
Chicago was named.

MRS. AMANDA E. POORMAN
CoirsiN OF Abraham Lincoln, Dies in Chicago.

Mrs. Amanda E. Poorman, a cousin of Abraham Lincoln,
died on Tuesday, July 20, at the home of her daughter, Mrs.
William F. Huge, 4700 West End Avenue. Mrs. Poorman was
87 years of age. She was a daughter of Dennis Hanks. She
was born in Charleston, 111., March 1, 1834. Two children
survive : Mrs. William F. Huge, and Mrs. C. P. Cummings of
Decatur, 111.

256

MRS. JENNIE S. CARPENTER
Teachek for Forty-two Years, Dies in Chicago.

Mrs. Jennie Strickland Carpenter, senior teacher in the
Chicago public schools in point of service, died Tuesday, July
6, at her home, 2622 West Adams St., Chicago. She was 65
years old. She began teaching in 1873 at the Clarke school
and taught continuously for forty-two years and eight months.
Her last charge was at the Seward school, directing the educa-
tion of subnormal children.

GIFT OF BOOKS, LETTERS AND MANUSCRIPTS TO

THE ILLINOIS STATE HISTORICAL

LIBRARY AND SOCIETY.

Army and Navy Roster of Oak Park and River Forest, Vol. I. Gift of Mr. Vincent
Starrett, 5611 W. Lake St., Chicago, 111.

Genealogy. Devon Carys, 2 Vols. Gift of Mr. Fairfax Harrison of Belvoir, Far-
quier Co., Virginia.

Genealogy. Wood Family of Shelf Halifax Parish, Yorkshire, England, in Massachu-
setts, Connecticut, Long Island, N. Y., and Canada. By Col. Casey A. Wood,
M. D. Gift of Dr. Casey Wood, 7 W. Madison St., Chicago, 111.

History of Congregation Adath Israel, Loirisville, Kentucky, and the addresses
delivered. Gift of the Congregation, Louisville, Kentucky.

Illinois Official Reporter, June 2, 1920. Gift of Mr. Samuel P. Invin, Bloomington,
Illinois.

Lincoln. Abraham. Abraham Lincoln by an Oxford M. A. Gift of H. P. Stokes,
M. A., Rector and author, Bedhampton Rectory, Havant, Hampshire, England.

Lincoln, Abraham. Sears (Rev.), Hiram. The People's Keepsake or funeral ad-
dress on the death of Abraham Lincoln with the principal incidents of his life.
Delivered by Rev. Hiram Sears, A. M., April 23, 1865. Gift of Mrs. Rose
Rinehart, Berea, Ohio.

Michigan State. The Color Line in Ohio. By Frank U. QuiUion, Ph. D., Vol. II.
University of Michigan Studies. Gift of the University.

Michigan State. A History of the President's Cabinet. By Miss Mary L. Hinsdale.
Vol. I. University of Michigan Studies. Gift of the University.

Newspapers. Chicago Inter Ocean, June 9, 1877. Miniature issue. Gift of Miss
Lillian I. Davis, 6043 Barton Ave., Los Angeles, Cal.

Newspapers. Crawford Co., Illinois. The Robinson Constitution, 1917-1918. Gift
of the Editor, F. W. Lewis, Robinson, Illinois.

Republican Campaign Text-Book, 1920. Gift of Mr. Ralph Tallitt, 19 W. 44th St.,
New York Qty.

Virginia Colonial Dames of America, in the State of Virginia. Address at the Three
Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of Jamestown. By Hon. Thomas
Nelson Page. 28 pp. 8 vo. Richmond, Va., Muttel & Shepperson, Printers, 1919.
Gift of the Virginia Colonial Dames.

World War. The Sick and Disabled Men of Illinois. By Myron E. Adams, with
an introduction by Gen. Leonard Wood. 45 pp. 8 vo. Chicago-Fort Sheridan As-
sociation. Gift of Mr. MjTon E. Adams.

NECROLOGY

JULIA CUSTIN LORD

Julia Marie Custin was bom in Unionville, Ohio, Oct. 1,
1854. She was the daughter of Gurdon Custin and Marie
Hickok. At the age of two years she was left motherless and
was placed in the care of an aunt, where she remained until
the remarriage of her father. When eleven years of age she
was brought west to Piano by an aunt, Mrs. D. S. Jenks, where
she made her home until her marriage. Mrs. Lord completed
her course in the Piano schools and later from Jennings Sem-
inary, Aurora, graduating from this school with honors. On
June 25, 1879, she was united in marriage to Dr. Frank H.
Lord, at Piano. To them were born three children, two sons
and one daughter. Major Dr. Arthur Evarts Lord, of Piano,
who did splendid service over seas; Prof. Robert Lord,
teacher of history at Harvard University and who was an im-
portant factor as an aid to President Wilson in the Paris
Peace conference and Frances, now the wife of Captain Dr.
Gerald Allaben, of Buhl, Minn., all of whom were present at
the funeral.

Besides the husband and three children, she leaves a
grandson, Gerald Allaben, Jr., one sister, Mrs. Emma Evarts,
of Plainfield, 111. ; four brothers, William, Milton, Albert and
Edwin Custin are living. Wilham Custin, of Morris, 111., was
present at the funeral.

Perhaps no woman's death in Piano or vicinity has
caused so much genuine sorrow and grief in every household,
no matter how humble, as was the tragic and untimely taking
away of Mrs. Lord, who was so severely burned Sunday morn-
ing, January 4th, from the bursting of the hot water heating
plant of her home, that she died at 8.10 P. M. on that day.

Before Mrs. Lord's marriage she was popular and active
in all that made up the Ufe of the younger people of Piano.

262

She early became a member of the Methodist church, where
she for many years took a most important and useful part.
None of these activities ceased after her marriage to Dr.
Lord, but rather broadened out and increased, making her
home her first thought as she did up to the very time of her
death, but never was she too busy or too tired to extend a
loving, kindl}', helping hand to others by word or deed.

Mrs. Lord practiced and exemplified in her quiet, modest,
earnest, loving way, a true, practical Christianity that made
itself felt upon others and especially among those nearest to
her. While she was devoted to her home, husband and chil-
dren, she was also devoted to public affairs in her city, county,
state and nation and there were few better posted, her inter-
est always being a useful and uplifting one. She was a charter
member of Piano's first woman's organization. The Art Club,
later she helped organize the Piano Woman's Club and up to
the time of her death was one of the club's most active, use-
ful and influential members, serving most acceptably as presi-
dent, 1909 to 1911 and again called to this position 1916 to
1918. Mrs. Lord was an early member of the Illinois State
Historical Society and aided the Society by her interest and
influence.

In 1917 ^Irs. Lord was unanimously selected by the Ken-
dall County Federation of Woman's Clubs as its president,
serving two years "with dignity and honor to the organization
and herself. She was one of the foremost women in all activi-
ties in this community. During the war period she did splendid
work in Red Cross, acting as president of the Plato Woman's
Council of National Defense, and was at the time of her death
one of a committee of three to record the war activities of
Little Rock township. Socially, she was a noted hostess, her
hospitaUty was generous and sincere.

Her life was well lived; she leaves behind a rich heritage
of loving memory to her family and friends, that ^^^ll grow
richer and richer A\ith the years to come. She lived to see her
children grow up and accomplish the things for which she
had worked and for which she was most ambitious.

263

Funeral services were held at the home Wednesday after-
noon, January 7th, at 1:30 and at the Piano M. E. Church
at 2 P. M. Rev. Mark J. Field, Pastor of the church in charge,
assisted by Rev. Dr. J. M. Lewis of Sandwich; with Rev.
J. W. Gillespie, of the Baptist Church, Elder McDowell, of
the Latter Day Saints church and Rev. N^ R. Hinds, retired
pastor of the Methodist church occupying a place on the plat-
form.

Rev. Mr. Field offered prayer at the home. At the church
the officers and members of the Piano Eastern Star chapter
of which Mrs. Lord was a charter member, stood just out-
side of the church door and acted as a guard of honor. The
casket which was covered with a beautiful blanket of flowers
was deposited at the church altar in a profusion and bed of
cut flowers and wreaths of roses, loving remembrances from
kind friends.

Miss Hazel Olson sang a beautiful solo; Rev. Mr. Field
offered prayer and read a very appropriate poem, "Mother
Mine" sent to Mrs. Lord by her son Major Lord while in the
trenches over in France. Dr. Lewis then spoke of the life
and achievements of Mrs. Lord, which was a splendid tribute
and exposition of the life of this beloved wife, mother and
citizen. He spoke from his heart as of a dear friend, closing
his remarks \\'ith prayer. Mr. Blake Wilson, a very dear
friend of Major Lord and the family, of La Grange, sang a
beautiful solo. Rev. Mr. Field offered prayer. Mrs. Rose
Underhill closed the services Avith another beautiful solo, "In
the Hush of the Twilight Hour," a tribute to her dear friend.
Mrs. Alice Schaefer acted as accompanist for the soloists.

One most pronounced evidence of the deep respect and
love felt towards Mrs. Lord by our citizens was the closing
during the hours of the funeral, of eveiy business place in
the city as well as the public schools.

The remains were laid away in a beautiful lot in the
Piano cemeteiy.

264

A great many old friends and neighbors of Mrs. Lord
and the family, from out of town were present at the funeral
from Sandwich, Hinckley, Aurora, Big Rock, Yorkville and
La Salle.

JAMES K. BLISH 1843-1920.

James K. Blish, President of the First National Bank,
former member of the legislature from that district, and
long one of Kewanee's best known citizens, passed away
peacefully at his home, corner of Tremont street and Cen-
tral boulevard, Kewanee, at 1 o'clock Sunday morning. Feb-
ruary 22, 1920. Death was due to pernicious anemia, of
which he had been a victim since a year ago last November.

Mr. Blish was in his 77th year, his birth having been
May 2, 1843. His parents were Charles C. and Ehzabeth P.
Bhsh. The genealogy of the family, in which Mr. BUsh was
greatly interested, and which he helped to complete, shows
that all of the name of Blish are descendants of Abraham
Blish, who was in Duxbury, a part of the Plymouth colony.

Mr. Blish 's grandfather, Col. Sylvester Blish, came to
Wethersfield in 1837. Col. Sylvester Blish was the father
of Chas. C. Blish and Wm. H. Blish, two men whose names
are familiar to older residents of Kewanee.

James K. Blish acquired his early education in the Union
school of Wethersfield and Kewanee and afterward became a
student at Ann Arbor, and in 1862 he entered the University
of ]\Iichigan, from which he was graduated with the degree
of Bachelor of Arts in 1866. His college days being ended,
he returned to his home in this county and was identified with
farming interests in Wethersfield township for three years.
His alma mater conferred upon him the Master of Arts degree
in 1876. After devoting three years to farming he went to
Council Bluffs, Iowa, where he entered the firm of Kiter,
Bonar & Blish, manufacturers of blank books, his identifica-
tion ^vith the house continuing two years, after which he dis-
posed of his interest there and went to Chicago, where he
entered the employ of J. W. Middleton, engaged in the same
line of business, until the disastrous fire of 1871.

265

He then returned to Kewanee, and became a law student
in the office of Howe & North, the senior partner being Judge
John H. Howe, who a year later was appointed by President
Grant as chief justice of the territory of "Wyoming, Mr. Blish
then continued his law practice under the direction of Levi
North, and while pursuing his law course was elected justice
of the peace, being the youngest man who had ever filled that
position in Kewanee.

In 1873 Mr. Blish passed the required examination before
the judges of the supreme court at Springfield, among whom
was the venerable Sidney Breese, and being thus admitted
to the bar, opened a law office in Kewanee, where he followed
his profession for many years. At the time of his death he
was one of the oldest representatives of the bar in the county
in years of continuous practice. He won for himself very
favorable criticism for the careful and systematic methods
which he followed. He had remarkable power of concentra-
tion and application, and his retentive mind often excited the
surprise of his professional colleagues. As an orator he stood
high, especially in the discussion of legal matters before the
court, where his comprehensive knowledge of law was mani-
fest and his application of legal principles demonstrated the
wide range of his professional acquirements. The utmost
care and precision characterized his preparation of a case and
made him one of the successful attorneys in Henry County.

Mr. Blish had also become known in business circles and
since 1894 he had been the honored president of the First
National Bank, which was organized in 1870, at which time his
father was elected president and so continued for about
twenty years. Various other corporate interests had bene-
fited by his wise counsel and sagacious judgment in business
affairs. He took a leading part in the organization of the
Kewanee Building and Loan Association and was chosen its
first secretaiy. He also assisted in organizing the Kewanee
Electric Light Company, now the Consolidated Light & Power
Company and was prominently identified with a number of
other business enterprises that have promoted the welfare
of the city.

266

While the life work of Mr. Blish was pre-eminently that
of a successful practitioner of law he was ever mindful of his
duties and obligations of citizenship and he labored earn-
estly and effectively for the benefit of the city along many
hues. He was one of the organizers of the Kewanee public
library and served for twelve years on its board of directors.
For thirteen years he was president of the Kewanee Fair
Association, which he had aided in organizing, and for four
years he was a member of the board of county supervisors,
during which time he served on the building committee for
the erection of the Henry county courthouse. His service as
a member of the school board covered eighteen years, during
which period he acted for a part of the time as its secretary
and at all times was a stalwart champion of the cause of
public education, promoting its interests through the employ-
ment of competent teachers and the adoption of improved
methods of instruction. Called to the city council, he served
as alderman for several years and exercised his prerogatives
in support of every measure which he deemed of municipal
benefit. In politics he was a Democrat. He had been a dele-
gate to nearly all the state conventions of his party and in
1888 Avas one of the presidential electors. His highest po-
litical honors were conferred upon him in 1902, when he was
elected minority representative to the general assembly of
Illinois for the thirty-seventh district composed of Bureau,
Henry and Stark counties.

Mr. Blish was married twice. On December 25, 1867, in
Chicago, he married Miss Mary E. McManus. There were
three children of that marriage, Carrie Elizabeth, who died
at Council Bluffs ; James Louis, now living in Fond du Lac,
Wis., where he is practicing dentistry ; and Bertha Belle now
Mrs. J. E. Shepardson, Belhaven, N. C. Mr. Blish 's first wife
died in 1883. He again married October 5, 1886, in Cam-
bridge, his bride being Miss Amy Mason Rhodes. To them
were bom three children, Elizabeth, now Mrs. A. D. Brook-
field, of Kansas City, Mo., Matthew R., of New York City and
Asa R., of New York City.

Mr. Blish was numbered among the pioneer residents of

267

Henry county, where he spent his entire Ufe and served for
several terms as president of the Old Settlers Association.
Mr. Blish was a member of the Illinois State Historical
Society and by his interest and counsel greatly aided the
Association. The funeral of Mr. Blish occurred on Tuesday,
Februarj^ 24, 1920, at his late residence. Rev. Thomas E.
N^ugent, pastor of the First Congregational Church of Ke-
wanee, officiated.

OTTO C. BUTZ, 1857-1920.

Otto C. Butz died suddenly at his home in Winnetka,
Sunday, May 2, 1920. Mr. Butz was born in Chicago, a son
of Casper Butz. After graduating from the University of
Michigan, he entered the practice of law in Chicago. He was
associated with Francis Lackner, Amos C. Miller and F. E.
Von Amnion. Mr. Butz was a close friend of the late Theodore
Eoosevelt. During the war a pamphlet which he wrote de-
nouncing the Hohenzollern dynasty and setting forth the war
aims of the United States, was circulated wdely in America
by the government and was dropped inside the German lines
by American aviators. He was a member of the University
and Hamilton clubs and the Chicago Bar Association, the
Illinois State Historical Society, and a director of the Chicago
Title & Trust Company.

Many an American boy of German descent died under the
flag to defeat a Genuany betrayed by Potsdam, and at home
older men of the same breed gave of their substance and their
moral influence to support them. Of these one of the leaders
was Otto Butz, an American of the lineage of revolutionarj^
'48, a citizen saturated in American ideals, as stanch and
whole-souled a lover of our common country as any descend-
ant of the Majdlower company. Like Carl Schurz, Mr. Butz
was American because to him America meant certain princi-
ples of human liberty and democracy. Therefore he had no
doubt about this duty either before we entered the war or
after. He saw with clear eyes what was wrong in modern
Germany and used his fine intelligence and moral weight in
an attempt which did not fail of effect, both to serv^e this coun-

268

try, which had given him birth, and the people from whom his
ancestry sprung.

Otto Blitz represented not only 100 per cent American-
ism, but the character and culture which America has drawn
from the German race. The community loses by his death,
but his influence will not pass. He set an example of loyal
citizenship which will not be forgotten by Americans who
passed through the ordeal of the war and know what his
service was.

MEMORIAL OF COLOSTIN D. MYERS, 1847-1920.
By Charles L. Capen.

Colostin D. Myers was born at Racine, Meigs County,
Ohio, May 7, 1847, in a small five room cottage standing well
back from the Ohio river, in the outer limits of a town, or
village of not more than 500 inhabitants. He was descended
from a family of early immigrants, his grandfather, Jacob
Myers, having been born in eastern Pennsylvania, of Dutch
stock. His father, Benjamin Myers, was born in Mononga-
hela, Virginia, now West Virginia, on the 16th day of April,
1813, and died in Pomeroy, Meigs County, Ohio, August 4th,
1851. His father was a skilled mechanic and an ingenious
woodworker, having served an apprenticeship as a millwright
under his elder brother, John Myers, and at the time of his
death was a pattern cutter in a foundry in Pomeroy, Ohio.
Judge Myers' mother was bom in Meigs County, Ohio, on
August 5th, 1820, and died near Palatine, Virginia, October
20, 1894. Her maiden name was Selena Elliott. . She was a
daughter of Fuller Elliott, a pioneer emigrant from Massa-
chusetts to the Ohio Valley region, who attained local promi-
nence, being at one time judge of a county or inferior court
and probably a member of the legislature, as it seems he had
something to do vdth the naming of the county.

The subject of our sketch was four years old at the time
of his father's death. His mother remarried a man by the
name of William Swearengen, and after the marriage the

269

family, including Colostin D. Myers, removed to a farm near
Palatine, Va., to the home of the stepfather, where the sub-
ject of our sketch worked for a number of years upon the
farm and in the tan yard, which was a side enterprise of his
stepfather. Opportunity for schooling was limited as it was
by private subscription that the schools were maintained and
that for most part only in the winter season.

In the winter of 1861 or 1862, he attended a term of four
months at a private school five or six miles from his home,
boarding with a family nearby, from Monday until Friday
evening. In the fall of 1863 he attended an academy at Fair-
mont, the county seat, where he remained for about three
months. In the early spring of 1863, being then a lad of six-
teen years, he left the home of his stepfather, with a view
of returning to Racine, his native home, working for a time
for a Mr. Hamilton in order to obtain means for the con-
templated jouniey. It was in March, 1864, that he finally
arrived at Racine and, through the influence of friends,
secured a position as clerk in a general store in Pomeroy,
Ohio, the county seat of Meigs County.

In May, 1864, being then seventeen years of age, he en-
listed as a private, in Company K., 140th Ohio National
Guard, known as the "One Hundred Day Service," and
served for three months, being discharged in September, 1864.
He again enlisted in the army in February, 1865, at Cincinnati
and was assigned to Co. B., 32nd Ohio Regiment, though he
never served with that regiment, which was then with Sher-
man on his march to the sea and inaccessible at the time of
his enhstment. In May, 1865, under general orders from
Secretary of War, he, together with 120 others of the de-
tached service at Todds Barracks, was discharged and he re-
turned to the home of his mother in West Virginia.

At broken intervals from 1865 to 1871 Judge Myers at-
tended school at Lebanon, Ohio, replenishing his funds with
which to pay his expenses by teaching school and working on
the farm, from time to time, finally graduating from the nor-
mal school of Lebanon in June, 1872. In September of the

270

same year he was married to Dora Yeager, who during the
pre\nous school year had been in the faculty of the Normal
School. Together they undertook the task of making a place
for themselves in the world, and establishing a home, and for
ahnost forty-eight years this bride of his early manhood
walked by his side, a constant, helpful, faithful and admiring
companion. The home life of these splendid people was an
ideal of love and confidence and happiness. They parted
cahuly and confidently when the final summons came, Mrs.
Myers remaining behind to cherish the memory of that long
and happ}^ union, he going before to explore the unknown
country from which no traveler returns, both confident of the
hereafter.

Shortly after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Myers re-
moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he had entered the
law school, which at that time covered a two years' course of
six months each. During the vacation between the first and
second years he made an extended trip into Kansas, Nebraska?
Iowa and Illinois, in search of a favorable location where he
might enter the practice of his chosen profession. It was
upon this trip that he visited Bloomington, Illinois, preferring
this city ^\T.th which he was favorably impressed as being
most inviting for a home and for a start in his life work.
This choice he never regretted. He always maintained a
pride in and a loyalty to his chosen home as is amply demon-
strated by the beneficent provisions of his last ^\ill and
testament. After his visit to Bloomington he returned to
Ann Arbor and finished his law course, graduating from that
school with the degree of LL. B., in March, 1874. He then re-
moved to Bloomington in April of 1874, where he continued
to live until the time of his death. He was admitted to the
practice of law in the Michigan courts, in the city of Detroit,
and upon this license was admitted, without examination, to
practice law in the State of Illinois. In 1875 he formed a
partnership with Albert Bushnell, under the firm name of
Myers & Bushnell, which continued a few years until Mr.
Bushnell removed to Kansas City. Sometime after that he
formed a partnership with Isaac W. Stroud, under the firm

271

name of Myers & Stroud, which partnership continued until
the failing health of Mr. Stroud in 1881 caused his retirement.
In 1886 Judge Myers was nominated by acclamation and
elected County Judge of McLean County, in which capacity
he served until 1897, when he was nominated and elected as
Judge of this Honorable Court, the Circuit Court of the
Eleventh Judicial District, being then as now, composed of the
counties of McLean, Ford, Logan, Livingston and Woodford.
This position he retained for three successive terms of six
years each, and voluntarily retired therefrom in June, 1915,
From 1903 to 1909 he was by appointment of the Supreme
Court a member of the Appellate Court of the Fourth Judicial
District, from which position he likewise voluntarily retired.

Upon his retirement from the Circuit Bench in 1915 it
was his hope that he would be enabled to spend much time in
travel and to regain in some measure his physical vitality
which had been sorely draA\aa upon by the manj^ years of
active service upon the Bench ; but it was not long after that
in the crisis of the great World War he was called upon by
the Governor of his State to serve as a member of the Exemp-
tion Board of McLean County. This position he accepted
purely from a sense of duty and threw himself so earnestly
into the work that there can be no question that his health
was undermined and his life shortened thereby, but notwith-
standing his failing health he adhered steadfastly to the task
assigned to him until he was discharged at the end of the war.

Judge Myers was a man whose traits of heart and mind
endeared him to all those who were fortunate enough to come
in intimate touch with that splendid spirit.

He was gentle and kind and lovable. He was patient
almost beyond measure. Xo young or inexperienced la^vyer
practiced before him, but felt the kindly sympathy and re-
ceived the helpful suggestions of Judge Myers.

He was an able Judge. His eminent fairness and impar-
tiality were matters of common knowledge and comment.

Retiring, not given to parade or ostentation, he lived a
simple, quiet, life. He kept himself aloof from business or

272

social enterprises which he thought might in any way tend
to affect his judicial duties.

He kept his own counsel. Friendly to all, he talked con-
fidentially to few. Fortunate indeed was that individual who
was permitted to hear from this just man his estimate of
human life and the hopes and ambitions that had directed and
controlled his course -with his fellow men.

He Avas a genial companion, his conversations were al-
ways interesting and instructive, with a thread of good humor
running through it all. He was a mse and safe counselor, an
upright Judge, an honest man. He was worthy of the trusts
committed to him. He was an ornament to the Bench and bar
of his State. He contributed richly to the generation in which
he Uved. The Illinois State Historical Society of which he
was an early member wall miss his wise counsel and encour-
agement as well as his friendly words of appreciation of its
work.

His going is a distinct loss to this cormnunity and to the
State. Judge Myers died January 13, 1920.

EESOLUTIONS OF THE McLEAN COUNTY BAR, IN
MEMORY OF THE LIFE AND SERVICES OF

COLOSTIN D. MYERS.
Be it Resolved, That the McLean County Bar Associa-
tion, in recognition of the eminent services of our departed
member and in appreciation of his sterling character and lov-
ing companionship, express to the members of his family and
the community at large the sorrow and sense of loss that we
feel at his going, and that this short sketch and simple tribute
be presented by the president of this Association to the Pre-
siding Judge of the Circuit Court of McLean County, where
the deceased so long and so faithfully presided, Avith the
request that it be spread at large upon the records of this
Court; and further, that the Secretary of this Association
send a copy of these resolutions to his widow.

Sain Welty,
Jesse E. Hoffman,
Hal M. Stone,

Committee on Resolutions.

273

JOHN W. BUNN.*

John W. Bunn, pioneer Springfield banker and business
man, close friend of Abraham Lincoln, died at the family
residence, 435 South Sixth Street, Monday afternoon, June
7th, 1920.

John W. Bunn was the son of Henry and Maiy Bunn.
He was bom in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, June 21, 1831,
and at the time he left his native state to come to Springfield
he was living on a farm near Milford. On arriving here he
entered the employ of his brother Jacob Bunn, who had come
to Springfield ten years previous, as a clerk in the latter 's
wholesale grocery house. In 1858 he became a partner in the
firm organized as the "J. and J. W. Bunn Company" which
was later succeeded by "John W. Bunn and Company."

Jacob Bunn had returned to Milford on a visit, and took
with him wonderful stories of the rolling prairies and fruitful
fields of Illinois of the great new western State, and of the
very fine place it was in which to live. John, with all of a
young boy's adventurous longing to see something of the
world himself, and not just through another's eyes, heard
these stories with secret hopes of some day striking the west-
ward trail and feasting his own eyes on the wonders it un-
folded. One day during his brother's visit John was out in a
field near his farm home busy at the necessary but uninterest-
ing task of picking up stones from the field and loading them
into a wheelbarrow. This was done in order to clear the
ground for cultivation and also to get the stones for fence
making. Every one who has ever been in the East knows the
rock-piled fences of that section, vine woven, charming, pic-
turesque, inviting one to climb over and explore the other
side, to wander away from their confines and down grassy
glades — grassy, that is between the boulders and outcropping

•The above sketch of John W. Bunn is taken largely from the articles published
by the Illinois State Register and the Illinois State Journal, Springfield, at the time of
Mr. Bunn's death, and from personal remembrances of friends.

274

stones — or up little mountains that have strayed away from
the greater ranges. It is certain that John Bunn had no eye
however for the picturesque qualities of the fence those stones
he was picking up should build. He had only a young boy's
dislike of the irksome, tedious, uninviting task. What boy
wants to pick up stones when there are fields and hills to
wander through, or streams in which to fish? "What would
you think," Jacob suddenly said to his brother, "if I should
tell you that out where I live we have field after field, mth
acres upon acres where you couldn't get enough stones to fill
a wheel barrow?" John looked at his older brother for a
moment, then replied, "I would say that I'd like to go out
there to live. I'd like to get out of doing work like this. I'd
like to see a different country."

His brother promised then to bring him out west to live.
He did not make the return trip with Jacob at that time, but
some months latter when three men from Springfield who had
come from the same section of New Jersey went back there to
visit, Jacob Bunn sent for his brother to come out with them.

That journey was possibly the most eventful John Bunn
ever took in his life. He liked to recall the wonder of it, and
often told of it most interestingly. The details were always
fresh in his mind, for the novelty and strangeness of the trip
was never lost to him. The journey was made by water and
stage coach. The first step of the journey to Buffalo, was
made by Avay of the Erie canal. From there on to Chicago the
trip lay over both land and water. Sometimes they traveled
by stage coaches, sometimes by boat. But from Chicago to
Springfield, the trip was made entirely by stage coach. Mr.
Bunn was in a constant state of amazement at the wonderful
expanse of prairie land through which he passed after he had
reached Illinois. Being spring time, the fields were at the
height of fresh green beauty. Woodlands, great trees rearing
against the sky^, softly rolling prairies and gentle dales, then
miles and miles of free sweeping distance.

The three men with whom he travelled had a great deal
of fun with Mr. Bunn, and these instances have often formed

275

the ground for humorous anecdotes mth which he used to
regale his companions.

For one thing they told him stories of the savage Indians
they would find all along the way. The young lad had pro-
vided himself with a huge pistol which he had ready for any
emergency, and was on the lookout for occasion to use it. He
wasn't scared, but he was ready. And nothing happened.
The Indians they did meet were friendly and helpful. And
the boy realized that he had been the victim of a good joke.
But then he had never travelled west before. So he hadn't
known what he might expect as they told him.

Mr. Bunn in speaking of the early days in Springfield
said, "I came here in 1847 just after Mr. Lincoln had been
elected to Congress." (He was elected in 1846.) Mr. Bunn's
acquaintance with Lincoln began almost immediately. Lin-
coln was Jacob Bunn's lawyer for both his bank and grocery
business, and as John Bunn grew to handle the accounts for
the grocery business, he dealt with Lincoln in business
matters.

The first occasion on which Lincoln was of assistance to
Mr. Bunn, in any contest came several years later. Being
then about twenty-one years of age, he decided to run for city
treasurer. He came out of a restaurant one day and met
Lincoln with another man. Bunn stopped to talk to the other
man, explaining that he was running for the office and would
like some support. Lincoln spoke up with — "Well, you've got
two votes right here, his and mine. ' '

From that time on their acquaintance and association
grew, the association ripening to a degree of intimacy which
resulted in John W. Bunn being probably one of the closest
friends Lincoln ever had.

In time John W. Bunn became a partner in his brother's
grocery business, the firm name changing from "J. Bunn"
to J. and J. W. Bunn. They were clients of Lincoln's whose
office was then near what is the south entrance to ]\Iyers
Brothers' clothing store or the elevator entrance to the Myers

276

Building. A bronze tablet will mark this location — placed
by the Myers Brothers.

The Lincoln and Bunn families were friends. Mrs. Jacob
Bunn was a very handsome woman with a stately presence.
She has been described as ' ' queenly. ' ' She was an admirable
hostess and often entertained Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln. John
Bunn was a frequent guest at the Lincoln home.

When Lincoln was nominated for president, a group of
ten men, of whom Judge Stephen T. Logan, James C. Con-
kling (father of Clinton L. Conkling), Jacob Bunn, Robert
Irwin, and John Bunn were a part, contributed five hundred
dollars each to the expenses of the campaign. This consti-
tuted a fund out of which the expenses of the campaign should
be paid. Some people are of the opinion that the men raised
more money as it was needed. This fund was used for many
things in connection -with the campaign of Lincoln for presi-
dent. There were many visiting delegations of people from
different parts of the country who came to see him up to the
time he went to "Washington. These people had to be enter-
tained in some fashion while in the city, and it would have
been impossible to do so altogether at the Lincoln home or
by the Lincoln family. Through Mr. Bunn and his group of
friends this was made possible. Lincoln had not been told
who made up this group of men or how the money was raised.
Mr. Bunn acted as spokesman for the group and as disbursing
agent. Before going to Washington, Lincoln asked Mr. Bunn
for the amount of his "debt." Mr. Bunn is said to have re-
plied, "Nothing." Lincoln insisted upon knomng who had
assisted him ^and to what extent, and was then told. Up to
that time he had never known.

During Lincoln's campaign for president he was given
headquarters in the Court House, then the State House. Lin-
coln at that time had no money to hire a secretary or office
manager. John Hay, a brother of the late Charles E. Hay of
Springfield, afterwards Secretary of State and Avidely knoAvn
in later years as a writer had come to Springfield as a mere
lad to study law in the office of his uncle, Milton Hay. This

277

uncle, in talking things over "with Lincoln and his friends,
said: "Well, I've got a nephew who will never be a lawyer.
He may be a poet some day, and he can at least write good
English. He can be your secretary."

So John Hay became Lincoln's secretaiy. Later Mr.
Lincoln took young Hay to Washington with him, which prob-
ably gave him his start, and from this humble beginning a
statesman and author was made. This is just one of the many
inside stories of things connected with the life of Lincoln
which Mr. Bunn has handed down to history.

Mr. Bunn himself held some public offices, although he
never was an out and out politician. He was more a man
interested in the future of his city and state, an interest which
he always retained. He was elected city treasurer for the
years 1857, 1858, 1859. From 1859 to 1898 he served as
treasurer of the State Board of Agi'iculture ; from 1861
until 1865 he was pension agent for the State of IlUnois, hav-
ing been appointed by President Lincoln. He also served as
treasurer of the University of Illinois from the time of its
organization in 1868 until 1893, and was a member of the
RepubHcan State Committee from 1872 to 1876, and from
1900 to 1902. In 1871 he became a partner in the wholesale
boot and shoe business of "M. Selz & Company" of Chicago,
which later was incorporated under the name of "Selz-
Schwab & Company," holding the office of vice-president for
a number of years prior to his death. He became president
of the Marine Bank of Springfield in May, 1903.

Mr. Bunn was a member of the Chicago and Union
League Clubs of Chicago, and the Sangamo and Illini Clubs
of Springfield. He was appointed by Governor Dunne on the
Illinois Centennial commission. Because of his varied busi-
ness experiences and his knowledge of banking, Mr. Bunn was
naturally given positions of trust where the benefit of his
knowledge and experience was needed. And having worked
up from the ranks in the business world, he was well qualified
to exercise shrewd and accurate judgment of men and affairs,
a quality which Mr. Bunn possessed to a remarkable degree

278

in recent times, in spite of his advanced age and his increas-
ing retirement from the business world.

Accumulating a considerable share of the world's goods
early in life, Mr. Bunn was always generous in the extreme
where any call was made upon his charity or kindness of
heart, and where the affairs of his community were con-
cerned. The full story of his good deeds will never be told.
Many a successful business man owes his rise in fortune to
Mr. Bunn's assistance in the early hard days. Many a young
lad was given an education which would never have been his
but for the generosity and kindness of nature of John W.
Bunn, and many a woman left with children on her hands
to educate and support has appealed to Mr. Bunn with re-
sults which are to his everlasting credit.

In the matter of civic affairs, John W. Bunn was easily
Springfield's leading philanthropist. There is scarcely a
public building in the city but that bears some mark of his
contribution. The Lincoln Library is one excellent example
of this. Mr. Bunn was always interested in the pubhc library.
Years before the Lincoln Library was built, Mr. Bunn assisted
in estabhshing a subscription library which was open to the
public. He was one of the leading contributors to this, and
took an active interest in its management and care. This
library was maintained in the front half of the building over
Coe's book store. Mrs. Hannah Lamb Kimball, later Mrs.
John M. Palmer, wife of the fifteenth governor of IlKnois,
was the librarian. History has it that a romance begun in
this library resulted in the marriage of Hannah Lamb Kim-
ball and Governor Palmer.

When the Lincoln Library was founded and built, grow-
ing out of the pubhc library idea of which Mr. Bunn was the
sponsor, Mr. Bunn was made the president of the Board of
Directors, and served in this capacity, and as a member sub-
sequently for many years. It was only in the latter part of
1917, that he began to miss the meetings. His presence was
also a source of interest to every other member of the Board.

Mr. H. C. Eemann, the Hbrarian, said that in the old
days, when the business of the board had been transacted,

279

every member looked forward with eagerness to the remi-
niscent period which followed when Mr. Bunn, with rare
humor and great accuracy, would relate occurrences in the
early life of Lincoln and his association with him. Anecdotes
which have never found their way into print were recounted
at the meetings, and those privileged to hear them from Mr.
Bunn's lips, never forgot the relish and delight he took in
telling them.

JOHN W. BUNN.

In the death of John W. Bunn, Springfield has lost one
of its most valuable citizens. For seventy-three years, more
than the allotted lifetime of man, he has been connected with
the business affairs of the community, and his influence all
that time has been constructive and in the interest of the
public welfare.

John W. Bunn shunned the glare of publicity and showed
a modesty rare in these days among successful men of busi-
ness, and yet he took not only an abiding interest but an
honorable part in public affairs. He helped in the upbuild-
ing of many pubHc institutions and to him the Illinois State
Fair and the University of Illinois owe much for the efforts
he expended in their behalf while officially connected mth
them. A loyal member of the republican party he was for
many years active in State politics and for many years was a
member of the State Central Committee. As a member of the
Lincoln Library Board during the past four years and as an
active participant in many local activities to which he not only
lent his personal aid, but gave liberally of his substance, he
proved his value as a citizen of Springfield. There are few
charitable and humane movements of the past years to which
he has not contributed willingly and liberally.

As a banker, manufacturer and merchant, his name is
widely known, and the news of his death will be received with
deep regret in many parts of the country. In Springfield his
passing mil be mourned as that of almost the last of the
pioneer business men who gave the best of their lives to build-

280

ing up the city and whose faith and works were the foundation
upon which it now stands.

His long life of eighty-eight years covered the whole span
of the real development of the middle west. Here at its very
center he learned the lessons that enabled him to meet the
rapidly changing conditions as they came and pluck from
them success. He was the friend and contemporary of
Abraham Lincoln and the galaxy of great men who made
Illinois conspicuous in the past. Out of the experiences of
his youth and the achievements of his manhood have grown
the things that made his life a real and living factor in the
growth of the community that he has served so well for so
many years.

JUDGE MERRITT W. PINCKNEY.

Judge Merritt "Willis Pinckney, friend of Chicago chil-
dren, died at his home, 5758 Kenwood Avenue, Chicago, June
7, 1920.

Death was not unexpected. The judge has been seriously
ill for some time. He was forced to leave the bench about
two weeks ago when a cold developed into tonsilitis. An in-
fection of the mouth caused a fresh attack of kidney trouble,
from which he had suffered intermittently during twenty
years.

Merritt W. Pinckney was born at Mt. Morris, Ogle
County, Illinois, on December 12, 1859, and received his edu-
cation at the Rock River seminaiy of which his father, Daniel
J. Pinckney, was president. His mother was Margaret C.
Hitt. In 1881 he was graduated from Knox College at Gales-
burg, 111., and in 1883 graduated from the Union College of
Law with the degree of LL, B., being valedictorian of his
class.

On July 24, 1885, he married Miss Mary Van Vechten of
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, after having been admitted to the Illinois
bar.

281

He later came to Chicago and became a partnei- in the
firm of Pinckney & Tatge. In March, 1905, he was appointed
state inheritance tax attorney. In June of the same year he
was nominated to succeed Edward F. Dunne, afterward gov-
ernor of Illinois, was later elected on the Circuit bench, and
remained on the bench until his recent illness forced him to
absent himself.

Fkient) of Childken.

For eight years, 1908 to 1916, he presided over the
juvenile courts and his work there, his unflagging zeal in be-
half of Chicago childhood made him a national figure. His
theory of conducting the juvenile court was "aid and not
punishment" for the child delinquent.

He was a member of the Chicago Athletic Club, the
Chicago Bar, the Ilhnois Bar and the American Bar Associa-
tions, of the Hamilton Club, and of the Ilhnois State His-
torical Society.

As the head of the juvenile court. Judge Pinckney be-
came a world-mde figure. Approximately 50,000 delinquent
and dependent children came before him. Ever he was the
counselor and the friend of the boys and the girls who had
been wayward.

Laid Blame on Fathers.

"Blame for the delinquency of children Hes chiefly at the
door of the fathers," he said on one occasion, when his court
had been under criticism. He once advocated whippings for
fathers whose children came into his court as a result of some
juvenile crime. On another occasion Judge Pinckney asserted
that 82 per cent of dehnquent cases resulted from parental
neglect or incompetency.

Early in his career as judge he eliminated as far as pos-
sible the outward semblance of justice as being synonymous
with solemnity. When a child was brought before him, he
was not the imperious judge. He came down from his bench
and talked to the child as a friend. He consistently stood for
private hearings, beUeving that the court atmosphere was

282

destructive to a real understanding resulting between the
child and himself.

ITeged Fakm roE Boys.

Judge Pinckney always was in the vanguard of corrective
measures for delinquent children. He was active in his efforts
to secure legislation looking toward the betterment of the
wards of his court. He advocated the purchase of a large
farm where delinquent boys could be sent.

"Buy a large farm — the bigger the better — and let the
boys plant potatoes, corn, cabbage, anything. Just keep their
little minds busy, ' ' he said.

TEIBUTE TO JUDGE PINCKNEY

In the Chicago Evening Post, June 10, 1920.

By Miss McCauley.

Today Judge Merritt "W. Pickney, a son of Illinois and a
friend of struggling humanity, was laid to rest in the country
cemetery at Mount Morris, in Ogle county. Near by sleep his
father and mother, grandparents and great-grandparents,
who came to the prairie lands in the early days to redeem
them from the wilderness. Above his grave the ancient trees
of the grove wave their branches and play with shifting lights
and shadows, and beyond the hedge lie the broad com fields
of Illinois that he loved when a farmer lad.

Every good man treasures the inheritance of his parent-
age, and looking back on that boyhood it is possible to trace
the influences which fostered the honesty and breadth of
character that faced the world "without fear; the rugged man-
hood kindred to that of Abraham Lincoln, the love of the open
country, and the hunger for good books and friends by the
family fireside, and a passionate sympathy for the misguided,
the neglected and the oppressed.

His father. Prof. Daniel J. Pinckney, a scholar of the fine
old school of classical and liberal learning, came from New

283

York state to teach at the Methodist Rock River seminary, of
which later he became president. In those early days Mount
Morris was a center of culture in Illinois. In the early '50s
the migration from ]\Iaryland brought the family of Samuel
Merritt Hitt, Methodists, who could no longer tolerate the in-
justice of slave holding. They left the fertile hills of Mary-
land near the Antietam, long before the civil war, to become
citizens of the hopeful free state of Illinois. They came in
their carriages, driving herds of cattle before them, with a
wealth of possessions in their covered wagons, some of their
colored people following, rejoicing in their new-found free-
dom. And, inspired by the best that Maryland had given
them, the pioneers built homes in Ogle county, laying the
corner-stones of agricultural prosperity in the farms they
tilled for their o"\vn and seeking an education for their sons
and daughters at Rock River seminary. Mount Morris, and
wherever the red schoolhouse had an open book.

Young Margaret Hitt was the favored pupil of Prof.
Daniel J. Pinckney. Her father died and her brothers had
gone to war to fight at Shiloh and to win honors in the army
of the west. So it was well that Prof. Pinckney had Avon his
young A\T.fe and went to live on a farm near Mount Morris,
where Avith his aging mother-in-law and her venerable mother,
remarkable women of the pioneer days, there was hospitality
that is yet remembered in tales that are told.

It was here that Merritt W. Pinckney was born. And by
the open fire place he read Latin at his father's knee and
poetry mth his mother and learned garden lore from his
grandparents and farming in the holidays away from school.

The colored women and men who had been freed from
slavery by Samuel Hitt reared their families and served many
years vdth. the pioneers. And in this broad household of gen-
erous aims, with no distinction between rich and poor, with
the leaders of the state, of all classes and creeds, coming and
going, the young citizen grew to manhood and prepared for
that nobler work among the children of the city streets, the
forgotten and neglected.

284

Judge Merritt W. Pinckiiey brought an open mind re-
garding the rights of childhood to his bench in the Juvenile
court. He comprehended the child mind, he understood the
shattered family under city conditions, he saw the influences
sending the child to the temptations of city streets, and his
heart was stirred at the futility of laws to protect the weak
and the vast waste of life in the tide of the change from old
traditions to the new stress of industrial demands.

Keeping unsullied his ideals of womanhood, Judge Pinck-
ney upheld laws for the protection of women and girls. He
was severe in demanding duty from careless parents, punish-
ing a father as responsible for an erring daughter or a son.
He was tender in turning the wayward back to the straight
path. He was intimate with the work of his assistants, who
were inspired by the lofty purposes which dominated the
service he gave to his profession. His methods, closely ob-
served by Juvenile protective associations and juvenile
courts, revolutionized the law and have brought a sense of
guardianship and aid in the care of child life and the educa-
tion of parental responsibility. His early associations with
the children of black men in slavery bred a deep interest in
the future of the race and their rights as American citizens.

To grasp in its entirety the life work of Judge Pinckney,
one must follow the records of his times. But who can count
the many unremembered little deeds of kindness he scattered
day by day?

He lived for citizenship and not for himself alone. He
loved his home and family life and wholesome sports out of
doors. He kept unsullied the heart of the boy who had aspired
to emulate the eagle's flight toward the clouds above the
temple of the white pine forest which he haunted near his
home.

His companionship Uves after him in the memory of his
friends, and his earnest endeavor for children and the
neglected bears rich fruit in better laws and the clearer under-
standing of what is right among those who follow in his steps.

PHILIP S. POST
1869-1920.

Philip Sidney Post, vice-president of the International
Harvester company, died at his home in Winnetka, June 27,
1920. Mr. Post was the son of Gen. Philip Post, a distin-
guished officer in the Union army, who was wounded in the
battle of Nashville. After the war he was appointed consul-
general at Vienna, and there Philip Sidney II was bom in
1869. After thirteen years General Post returned to his
home in Galesburg, lU., and was soon elected to Congress.

Philip II after graduating from Knox college in 1887,
studied law at Washington, and worked as a newspaper cor-
respondent and as a private secretary to his father and
several other members of congress. He began his law prac-
tice at Galesburg in 1895. He was county judge of Knox
county and later master-in-chancery of the circuit court. He
was married August 27, 1902, to Miss Janet Greig of Oneida,
Illinois. He moved to Chicago in 1907. In 1910 he was ap-
pointed general attorney for the Harvester company, and
after eleven years was elected to a vice-presidency.

Judge Post was a member of the Loyal Legion, the
American and Illinois Bar Associations, the Union League,
the University, Hamilton, City and law clubs of Chicago ; also
of the Illinois State Historical Society in which organization
he took a great interest. He is survived by his widow, a sis-
ter, Mrs. James C. Simpson of Galesburg, and a brother,
Major W. S. Post of Los Angeles. Burial was at Galesburg,
111., his old home.

DUDLEY CHASE SMITH, 1833-1920.
By George D. Chapee.

The story of the life of Dudley Chase Smith is the story
of an idea imparted to a wide-awake boy at a juncture in his
young life when his blood was fresh, when his mind was
seeking the channel that opened into the enchanted ocean of
experience.

His ancestors on his father's side had the Pilgrim blood,
and his mother's ancestors were those who, seeking room,
freedom and adventure, settled in the wilderness of Kentucky.
His father, Addison Smith, was a nephew of Dudley Chase,
tAvice United States Senator and Judge of the Supreme Court
of Vermont, and of Bishop Philander Chase, the great Epis-
copalian missionary and college builder. Lincoln's great
greenback Secretary of the Treasury of the United States and
father of our National Bank, Salmon P. Chase, was a cousin
of Dudley Smith 's father.

Addison Smith started a newspaper in Dayton, Ohio,
which city this year, 1920, gave us a candidate for president.
Mr. Smith aided in locating the State University of Indiana
at Bloomington. Mr. Smith afterwards, losing nearly all of
his property in a venture in salt wells, in 1832 took his little
family in a wagon and traveled through the wilderness to
Shelbyville, Illinois, and bought the land upon which the
northern part of the city now stands. Here, in December,
1833, Dudley Chase Smith was bom.

Addison Smith, father of Dudley, taught school, practiced
law, and farmed a little. The family grew until there were
six girls and one boy. All worked, and the father taught them
the beauties of nature, the riches of the Bible and such liter-
ature as was then available. Young's Night Thoughts, some of
Walter Scott's historical novels and poems, the English
Reader, imparted to these children rich food for mind and
imagination and established a taste for first class hterature.

COL. D. C. SMITH

287

When Dudley was 12 years of age his father died leaving
the mother and seven children.

A short time before this, a man named Joshua L, Dexter
came to Shelbyville from the State of Maine and started a
store, which now would be called a department store, where
everything wanted could be had except alcohol. At that
period whisky was retailed at 15 cents a gallon and no hcense
was required to sell it. It was sold the same as sugar and
salt, and a majority of the people seemed to think it was
necessary. But Mr. Dexter was from the state of Maine and
beUeved as did his successors Roundy, Lufkin and Smith, that
it was a dangerous poison that stole away the brains and
ruined those who drank it. A dwelling house with sheds and
a lean-to, housed the merchandise.

General William Fitzhugh Thornton, afterwards the first
President of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, had a similar
store across the street.

These merchants bought all the produce the settlers had
to sell and hauled by wagon or drove the stock on foot 85
miles to Alton or St. Louis, as no railroads were built mitil
1855. Nearly all the business was done on a Christmas credit,
real money, even to pay taxes, was hard to get.

Mr. Dexter later married Sarah Smith, next to the oldest
of Addison Smith's children, and took a fatherly interest in
the boy Dudley.

The Mexican War was over, the soldiers were selling
their land warrants at from $25 to $150 or taking the govern-
ment's gift of 160 acres of land and settling the prairie state
rapidly. Business was lively and profits great.

In 1849 gold was discovered in Cahfornia in such quanti-
ties as to inflame the heart of every boy and man to dare the
unknown dangers across the Indian infested and pathless
wilderness to and beyond the Rocky Mountains. Young Smith
was wild to go, but his wise and loved brother-in-law had a
heart-to-heart talk with him; called his attention to the fact
that he was the only man of the family, with a widowed

288

mother and sisters, and that his duty was to stay with them
and aid in their support. He promised the boy that, if he
would push the farm that year, he should be taken into the
store. Then it was that the idea, the compelling idea of duty
and care of his mother and sisters was burned into the boy's
heart, and it was the master thought of his after life.

A\Tien he was 17 (Mr. Dexter having died) Dudley bor-
rowed $5,000, his character being his only security, and
formed a partnership of Roundy, Lufkin & Smith, each a
brother-in-law of Mr. Dexter. Smith became the credit man
and collector and got his knowledge of the legal part of it
from Samuel W. Moulton, a very accurate la^vyer whose office
was in the next building to this store. Moulton as member
of the Legislature became the father of our common school
Law of Illinois in 1855, and in 1857 he introduced a bill found-
ing the State Normal School at Normal. It was in this store
that young Smith learned the art of selling goods, for Joshua
L. Dexter and Charles D. Lufkin were experts. He also
learned the technic of making notes, mortgages and deeds and
securing the payment of store debts, which often ran from
one to ten years, before being paid. There was no limit to
interest which ranged from 10 to 25%, and he learned that
compounded it grew like a wet snowball rolling down a hill.
All goods were sold at an enormous profit.

In Dudley 's lifetime he witnessed the values of farm land
jumping from $1.25 to two, three and even $500 an acre.
About thirty years ago he saw that God was not making any
more land and the human race rapidly multiplying, he turned
his attention and capital into the purchase of land. By these
methods he laid the foundation of the wealth he accumulated.

In 1920 the world was in a state of upheaval; chaos
seemed to struggle for control; sane men rendered insane by
the lure of ambition were trying and are still trying to re-map
the world, trying to move the landmarks of the earth, trying
to wipe out and amiul all the fundamental rules that wise
men have for generations prepared from the experience of

289

time. Holy writ was declared frivolous, the Lord's Prayer
ignored or forgotten, the Declaration of Independence re-
garded as flamboyant rhetoric, the Constitution of the United
States no longer regarded as the Palladium of our civil liber-
ties but declared to be outgrown and obsolete.

In a juncture like this it seems wise to review the life of
one of Illinois' best citizens, who has passed into everlasting
silence, and try to acquire such lessons from it as may solace
our memoiy of him and encourage those who remain. Such
a review may tend to aid the young now with us and those
who come after us in some of the arts of right living. A few
minutes story of such a life of earnest steady, persistent,
economical effort, may teach others that success in life does
not come by accident nor to profligate spendthrifts and
slackers.

Chance and accident, luck and pluck, as well as reason,
judgment and careful forethought, are forces that must not
be overlooked in shaping the destiny of a man.

Nature recognizes a great divide, not only in great things
but in small. The rain that falls on the mountain tops may go
east or west, north or south seeking the great ocean level.

Except for General Braddock's fool-headed persistency
in the method of making war upon the French and Indians
and refusing to take the advice of a young native lieutenant
who afterwards became General George Washington, he might
not have been defeated in the battle known as Braddock's
defeat, and General Washington might not afterwards have
been known as a great warrior and the greatest of statesmen.
Except for a small Jew learning of the defeat of Napoleon at
Waterloo, having a horse at his command by which he made
a race from Brussels to the seashore, reaching England be-
fore the knowledge of the victory was known to the financiers
of London, the Rothschilds might not have become the finan-
cial monarchs of Europe.

Mark Twain in his humorous way tells a story of an im-

290

possible accident of a shark swallowing a man in the harbor
of Liverpool in 1870. This man had a copy of the London
Times in his pocket, and the shark being caught in the harbor
of Sidney three days later, resulting in Cecil Rhodes becom-
ing one of the greatest and richest men of all times.

In every man 's life events occur, over which, at the time
he had no control, yet, when looked at from the heights of
following years, it can be seen that that little thing really
shaped his life.

Taxes are not usually supposed to be an interesting sub-
ject. They are reputed to be as certain as death and most
people have some experience along that line.

About 1868 or 1869 Colonel D. C. Smith, then a prosper-
ous merchant of Shelbyville, concluded to make a tour of
Europe. "While he was gone, the assessor of the town in which
he Uved, probably intending to do his duty, made an assess-
ment of Smith's property. The Colonel's politics, and his
activities in the Civil War, were not in harmony with the
politics of the assessor and officers of his county, and probably
the assessment was made much higher against the Colonel
chan it was against other citizens supposed to be much more
wealthy than he.

When he returned from his trip and learned what had
been done, faihng to get the matter adjusted along the hnes
of equality and justice as he believed, he paid the tax and
then and there determined that he would never pay another
personal tax in Shelby county ; shortly after that he removed
himself, his personal property and his sister's family to the
Count}'' of McLean. By this means Shelby county lost the
revenue which otherwise would have stayed within its
borders; and when fifty years is considered, the aggregate
is very large.

Shelby county also lost the enterprise and push of a man
whose brain and brawn were ever active along the lines of
business.

As an afterclap, thirty years after, at a time when

291

Colonel Smith was disabled by an accident for several months^
the Board of Review of Shelby county, which under the law
at that time clothed three officers vdih some remarkable
powers, overriding the law of the State, which provides that
in assessing intangible property it should be assessed in the
toAvnship in which the taxpayer lives, again made a wrongful
assessment on him. After making an investigation such as
they thought justified them in doing so, they undertook and
carried out an assessment upon his property, of nearly
$30,000. The matter was explained to the Board of Review
and facts shown them proving the assessment unjust and
illegal. Notmthstanding the facts, a record was made and
the revenue officers ordered to assess and collect the unjust
tax.

His attorney at the time, after explaining the situation
to Mr. Smith, enjoined the officers from further action, and
the matter was threshed out in the courts. The Board of
Review learned the elementary principle that personal prop-
erty follows the person of the tax payer.

As an incident and a result connected with this subject
the records of McLean county show that no citizen of that
county was ever more conscientious than Mr. Smith in return-
ing his property for taxation.

During the last ten years Colonel Smith has paid into the
treasury of McLean county in the town of Normal where he
resided $147,994.62, aggregating nearly one-half of personal
tax for each year. This does not include taxes on real estate
or bank stock.

It is a noteworthy fact that Normal township has 36
square miles of fine land, a beautiful city and presumably
many wealthy citizens. One of the county officers has stated,
over his signature as County Treasurer, a very complimen-
tary fact, saying :

"Col. D. C. Smith was a great and good man, living
honest and true to his convictions. He was loved by all
McLean county people that knew him. He had his heart in

292

his to%vn, county, state and nation. If there was a hundred
per cent American in our nation it was Colonel D. C. Smith
of Normal. ' '

Notwithstanding the fact that this sketch of Col. Smith's
life must be brief, we must not omit to mention his military
experience.

He heard Abraham Lincoln discuss the question of
slavery and the extension of it into the territories with Judge
Anthony Thornton at Shelbyville in 1856, and in his after life
the Colonel thought that he could quote almost accurately
what Mr. Lincoln then said.

The country in 1860 was very much excited concerning
the election of a president of the United States. The Demo-
crats nominated three candidates, Stephen A. Douglas of
Illinois, John Bell of Tennessee and John C. Breckenridge of
Kentucky, and two other candidates were running on inde-
pendent separate tickets. Abraham Lincoln was the choice
of the Eepubhcan party.

Col. Smith, though not a politician, was very much in-
terested in the result and did all he could in bringing the
success of the Republican party. In March, 1861, he attended
the inauguration of the President at Washington, heard the
famous inaugural address ; saw Stephen A. Douglas, the little
giant as he was called, one of Lincoln's life long rivals volun-
teer to hold ]\Ir. Lincoln's hat on that occasion.

In March and April several of the southern states
seceded; a provisional confederate government was started
at Montgomery, Alabama, and on the 13th of April, 1861, the
Confederates at Charleston commenced the bombardment of
Fort Sumpter which commanded the harbor at Charleston.
Mr. Lincoln then issued his first proclamation and called for
75,000 volunteers to enforce the laws and protect the property
of the United States.

Col. Smith at once volunteered and subsequently was
elected Lieutenant of Company B of the 14th Illinois Volun-
teers, and was commissioned by Governor Yates on April

293

26th, 1861. On August 15 thereafter he was promoted to
First Lieutenant, and in February, 1862, was made Captain
of his home company.

To portray a little of the conditions at his home town,
there was a general rumor that the anti-war Democrats and
Copperheads would not permit Company B to leave Shelby-
ville ; but, on the day of their departure all of the friends of
the government, and there were many war Democrats, came
to the depot to see their sons, friends, lovers and others go to
war. Company B was a part of the 14th Regiment. Col. John
M. Palmer, afterwards United States Senator and Governor
of Illinois was the first commander. Palmer was succeeded
in his office of Colonel by Cyrus Hall of Shelbyville. After-
wards Hall became a Brigadier General.

In Smith's service in the 14th Illinois he associated mth
General Vetch and General Stephen A. Hurlbut, and General
Walter Q. Gresham, also the Methodist Episcopal Preacher
Chaplain Rutledge, all of them now historical characters.
Dr. Stevenson, who organized the first Grand Army of the
Republic, was surgeon of the 14th Illinois Volunteers, and
Dr. N. F. Chafee was assistant surgeon.

Smith was severely wounded in the battle of Shiloh. In
those days the pistols used by the officers had to be loaded
with powder, and Capt. Smith carried a copper powder flask
in the pocket of his blouse. The ball that wounded him first
struck this flask and was, by the emblem of the American
eagle, deflected in such a way as to save his life. His regi-
ment was also engaged in the siege of Vicksburg and several
other battles, one known as Hell on the Hatchie, and in several
attacks on Corinth and in other battles in northern Missis-
sippi. His brother-in-law C. D. Lufkin, who stayed at home
and attended the firm business, died in May, 1863, and Gen.
Grant, by T. S. Bowen, accepted Captain Smith's resignation.
After he came home and arranged his business so that it could
be left, he raised a regiment numbered as the 143rd Illinois
Infantry, and Richard Yates, Governor, and 0. M. Hatch,
Secretary of State, issued him a commission as Colonel. The

294

regiment was discharged at Mattoon on December 26, 1864.
Among the Colonel's papers is a certificate of thanks from
Abraham Lincoln, President, and Edward M. Stanton, Sec-
retary of War, and this certificate contains among other
things these complimentary words :

"On all occasions and in every service to which they
were assigned their duty as patriotic volunteers was per-
formed with alacrity and courage, for which they are entitled
to and hereby are tendered the National thanks through the
Governor of their State."

In the Colonel's service in the 143rd regiment, he was
assisted by Lieutenant Colonel John P. St. John, who after-
wards became Governor of Kansas, and was a candidate on
the Prohibition ticket for President of the United States.

Col. Smith and Gov. St. John were bosom friends to the
time of the death of the Governor, and were companions in
extensive travels over the States of Kansas, Texas, and
Colorado ; Col. Smith being a good judge of real estate made
numerous investments in the State of Kansas and employed
Gov. St. John to manage these investments.

As commander of his company and regiment he was a
strict disciplinarian, not only for the good of the soldiers, but
for their general health. It may not be out of place to men-
tion an amusing incident that occurred near Memphis.

One of his soldiers was very fond of liquor and drank
whenever he could get it. He was put in the guard-house
for 24 hours to cure him of his weakness and to sober
him up. He was a wag and stuttered. This occurred about
the time Gen. Grant was trying to open up a new channel
through the Yazoo River to Vicksburg which was then being
besieged. The morning after the soldier was put in the guard-
house the Captain was riding into the country and met the
soldier mth one or two chickens and a small pig, which he
had foraged. He saluted the Captain as best he could, then
the Captain said to him — "Chris, I thought I put you in the
guard-house. How did you get out?"

295

His reply was a stuttering answei' : ' ' Cap, you did put
me in the guard-house but I got out through the Yazoo pass. ' '

His ^Yit saved him further punishment.

Col. Smith did not have the advantage of much schooling,
and a few months only he attended Jubilee College near Peo-
ria, but he matriculated in the school of hard knocks and
obtained the degree of F. E. (Fully Equipped) in the great
School of Experience.

Like Lincoln and Oglesby and Horace Greeley and Grover
Cleveland and thousands of others, he got a thorough educa-
tion as he could and when he could. Colleges and universities
do not make scholars, but they may be great helps.

Col. Smith rarely misspelled a word, never made gram-
matical errors, was always logical, like Lincoln he knew a
chestnut horse from a horse chestnut.

He had a fine Ubrary of the best books, 1,500 volumes.
He was daily a close student of the best encyclopedias, with
an open dictionary close at hand.

Like Frank Crane he was partial to biography, as well
as history, and in his last few years took great interest in
Morganthau's ''OWN STORY," and Rothschild's "Lincohi,
Master of Men." He was a member of the Hlinois State His-
torical Society and during the last several years of his life
one of its directors.

For a busy man he traveled much. He, with his sister,
Rie, were with Cyrus Field at Hearts Content when the first
telegraph cable was laid across the Atlantic. In 1867 he
visited the copper mines of Lake Superior, and afterwai'ds,
Alaska, Cuba, Mexico and Europe. He naturally turned to
men of reputation and affairs, and was a close friend of
Senator Grimes of Iowa, Joshua R. Giddings of Ohio, and Col.
John W. Foster of Indiana, who was Benj. Harrison's Secre-
tary of State. He also knew Presidents McKinley and Taft,
Secretary Wickersham, and among great merchants he was
intimate with the first Marshall Field and the members of

296

the firm of Sprague, "Warner & Co. In his late years his in-
timate home associates were Vice President Stevenson, Hon.
James Ewing, Dr. John Cook, Dr. David Felmley, Dr. Theo-
dore Kemp, and judges, lawyers, editors, ministers and phy-
sicians.

He verified sacred writ "Seest thou a man diligent in
business, he shall stand before Kings and not before mean
men. ' ' He knew that putting the clock ahead an hour did not
add one minute to daylight.

He never had a walking delegate of any union tell him
not to work over eight hours a day, and he did not believe that
a slovenly shirk should be paid the same wages as a con-
scientious workman. He knew that no man who was limited
by such rules ever become other than a hewer of wood and
drawer of water. With him the time to work was limited by
the amount of work to do, and that anything worth doing at
all was worth doing well. He was a hard task master, par-
ticularly to himself, never at any time shirking or dodging.
This characteristic followed him to the end and he believed
the philosophy of Miles Standish, ''If you want anything
done, do it yourself." This was one of the maxims of success.

It was wonderful in his later years how much he could
do, and how little he let it interfere with his many social
duties.

Ordinarily a man whose wealth had climbed to $100,000
or half a million, would surround himself with bookkeepers,
agents and assistants of all kinds, but Col. Smith had evolved
his own system of bookkeeping and kept close tab on money
loaned, farms, stores, banks, church, charities, partnerships,
each child, the household and other things, so that when Uncle
Sam wanted an income tax, or the assessor a schedule, he was
ready to make it right, keeping accurate lists of stocks, bonds,
notes, certificates, the serial numbers, price paid, interests,
sales, cost of farms, amount and price of crops, taxes and
improvements. Few men are capable of handling large for-
tunes ; they lack the mental and moral poise. Great fortunes

297

as a rule only accumulate by long, hard, careful efforts, the
effect is to cause a habit to grow and solidify along these lines,
until the force of the fortune becomes paramount and domi-
nates the owner, instead of the owner dominating the fortune.

The Midas touch is not an unalloyed blessing, and carries
its punishment with it.

The vice of it is, that when firmly grasped, the hold cannot
voluntarily be released.

This habit is not so observable where fortunes are in
companies and corporations operated by agents and officers.

Col. Smith was not entirely exempt from this compelUng
influence.

On an occasion like this where we are reviewing the life of
one of our citizens and friends, the small details are of more
interest frequently than large results. There may be a ques-
tion of taste in the matter which is presented or the privacy
of home or the privacy of a person may be invaded. Yet little
things are indicators of those more important.

My idea of a memoir is to give a portrait with all the side
Ughts so that the man shall appear as we knew him. The
Colonel's intimate friends and kin were all interested in the
annual dinners he and Mrs. Smith gave in honor of his sister,
Mrs. Lufkin on her birthday.

She was the oldest of the family and all her life had given
her young brother a wealth of care and devotion. She was
one of the women more priceless than rubies. One in ten
thousand, Avithout fear and without reproach. All loved her.
Her only brother delighted in surrounding her with her loved
ones and friends and praising her and thanking her for all
the past.

They were enjoyable occasions and once every year he
read her a poem of his own composing. Critics might find

298

fault with the meter but they were rich and worthy in fact
and devotion, and a credit to the author. I attach one sample
which breathes the spirit of all of them :

To SiSTEE Lucia.
On the Eighty -first Anniversary of Her Birth.

Eighty-one, and still as young

As sixty years ago,

And so you've friends and lovers, too

No matter where you go.

Eighty-one, and nimble yet.
No stiffness anywhere.
And graceful as when twenty-one
And just as debonaire.

Eighty-one, and busy still
As when your years were few
And everybody wonders how
You keep yourself so new.

Eighty-one, and children cHng
To you as long ago —
They cannot think of you as old.
You frolic mth them so.

Eighty-one, and all goes well.
And friends from near and far
Today send messages of love
To tell how dear you are.

Eighty-one, and still you grow
In loveliness and grace
And all the Kith and Kin exclaim,
"How sweet is Lucia's face!"

299

Eighty-one, and life serene,
And on your brow no frown
For simple faith assures you that
God holds for you a crown.

Eighty-one, how sweet to feel
Your hallowed pi'esence nearl
May God in goodness spare us all
To meet another year.

It is not enough to say that Col. Smith was a Presbyterian
or that he was a generous man, or that he was kind and courte-
ous, or, that he was a clean sober man — he was all that and
more. He was ever fair and cordial, showing real interest in
all with whom he came in contact, and he had a good memory
for faces and past events. He was a man both men and
women loved to meet. He was at home with scholars and men
of affairs, and was equally urbane with persons of less for-
tunate station in life.

He liked to joke as well as anybody, and enjoyed the
reputation in early life and in manhood of being the life of the
company. His cheerful and good spirits stayed with him to
the end. He never brooded over failures or accidents. If the
matters in which he was interested were not successful he
never advertised it, nor expressed regret. He was prob-
ably careful that the same thing should not occur again. In
his younger days, when relatives or friends made some mis-
take or failure he used the common expression of Josh. Bill-
ings, "Never cry over spilled milk"; and, would occasionally
say, "Never mind it, when it gets dry it will rub off." He
enjoyed games of skill and memory, such as lagometry, check-
ers, and crokinole, and true to his spirit, he enjoyed them
most when he was winner. He liked a joke as well as a child,
but a joke was vastly more agreeable when the other fellow
got the hot end.

He was a student, a Bible student, and daily during all
his married life he asked God's blessing on all the food he ate.

300

Daily he read his Bible with his family, and, vnth the con-
fidence of a little child, thanked his maker for blessings re-
ceived and asked for care and protection for each of his loved
ones ; then wife and each child sealed the service with a kiss.
A day so begun naturally ran smoothly.

Before his marriage, in his sister's family he learned the
children's little grace and often used it at his own table, and
in fact it prevails with most of the family connection ; and at
reunions 30 or 40 voices join in saying:

' ' Thou art great, God, and good.
And we thank thee for our food,
From thy hand must all be fed,
Give us, Lord, our daily bread."

This custom of praying and reading his Bible daily went
with him to hotels and on excursions for recreation. He never
became too old to be a scholar or teacher in Sunday school.
He was a constant attendant and active in all church work.
No instrument or device has yet been discovered to weigh or
measure the result or effect of such devotion.

He was not dogmatic or disagreeable in trying to force
his ideas or practice on any one else. His habits were simple
and methodical. He was regular about going to bed and
getting up and in shaving and bathing, and was a good
dresser. He was abstemious in eating, and good digestion
waited on a good appetite. He never drank alcohol of any
kind, or tea or coffee ; never chewed or smoked tobacco or took
snuff. He was not a reformed man — he did not quit those
things — he simply never began them.

Notwithstanding his devotion to business, he always was
alive to social matters and took a lively interest in art, music,
literature and kindred subjects. He organized an Art Associ-
ation among the thriving cities of Illinois.

"With a few choice spirits in Springfield, Jacksonville,
Lincoln, Decatur, Bloomington and Champaign for many

301

years this association met annually or oftener to study their
favorite topics and developed a commendable taste for civic
improvement and a far reaching love for the true, the beauti-
ful and the good.

These meetings introduced and secured for central Illi-
nois a higher plane of thought and entertainment. They were
a source of great pleasure and lasting improvement to the
members and ^vill be remembered as long as life lasts. Mr.
Charles Ridgely of Springfield was the first president.

Colonel Smith was rarely ill, except from accidental in-
juries ; his mind was clear and strong ; his body vigorous. He
really expected to live to a hundred years, and, except for the
shock he suffered, it is probable that he would have reached
the goal.

He was generous, not ostentatious. It has been ascer-
tained that in fifty years he gave over $300,000 to charity and
benevolence. He made no boast of it ; rarely spoke of any of
his gifts. Doubtless much was given that only the recipients
know about. In fact he was modest and objected to having
anything said about it, and, in speaking of it now, it is a
question as to whether or not it would be with his ap-
proval. The occasion for concealing these things is past.
If it had been known in his Ufetime that he was as generous
as it now appears that he was, the mail would have been bur-
dened with letters begging for donations to every conceivable
thing. This may have been one object in not letting the mat-
ter be known; the other probably was the old maxim *'Let not
the right hand know what the left hand doeth. ' '

I deem it right and proper that the men and women who
were interested in his life receive the benefit of a knowledge of
these gifts. We are more or less imitative, and many wealthy
people hesitate when deciding where to bestow their money.

Personally I am acquainted now with a man worth several
millions of dollars, who has no children, and no relatives that

302

need help. His wealth represents the savings of two genera-
tions, and I know from his statements to me that he is very
uncomfortable about deciding what to do with his property.

The kind of gifts Col. Smith made are an index to his
mind and heart. He felt keenly from experience the need of
a chance for education to poor boys and girls. His idea was,
that the boy or girl who really wanted to learn would work
to get an education.

His gift of $75,000 to Blackburn College at Carlinville,
IlHnois, is a good sample of what he thought.

His gift to Berea College in the mountains of Kentucky
was to aid the bright children of that region to overcome the
many handicaps that cripple and dwarf them in their infancy
and youth. His efforts along this line seem to be a reincarna-
tion of the spirit of his father and his Bishop great-uncle.

His numerous and large gifts to the Y. M. C. A. and
Y. W. C. A., McCormick Seminary and Illinois College, Jack-
sonville, and the churches in Normal, Bloomington, Shelby-
ville and elsewhere, show clearly that he believed strongly
in Christian ideas of help.

His large endowment to the Shelby County Hospital in
the name of his father and mother, and to other hospitals with
a condition of a free bed for the care of patients not able to
pay, is surely worthy of commendation and an example that
can well be followed.

Col. Smith on January 2, 1885, was married to Miss
Bernadine Orme, second daughter of Gen. William Orme, a
lawyer of Bloomington, a brave soldier in the Civil War.

He dupHcated his father's family of six girls and one boy.
These children are : Marion, married to Dr. Marshall Wallis ;
Helen P., married to Gresham Griggs ; Alice 0., a nurse over-
seas; Lucia L. Charlott, Florence, and Dudley Chase, Jr.
Five of these children honored Smith College, Mass., by going
there and graduated with honor from that institution.

303

In 1917 Col. Smith deeded about a section of good land
to each of his children and lived long enough to teach them
his methods of handling property. These gifts to his children
were large and represent seventy years of care, economy and
judgment of the highest order, but the legacy which he left
them of a spotless life, the master spirit and devoted love of
their father remain, and is of more value than all the acres
and will grow in value to them as the years roll on.

One of the Bloomington daily papers on the evening f ol-
lomng the Colonel's death in an editorial, well expressed the
feeling of the people of that beautiful city toward him and
will aid in giving to his honored name a permanent place in
the history of McLean county:

"Whenever any fund was needed for charitable action or
civic welfare the first and best spirit that came to the mind of
the committee was Col. Smith. This was his outstanding
merit, but not his paramount virtue. His best praise is the
resolute character that prospered his life and made his great
philanthropies possible.

As a youth he worked long into the night in that Shelby-
ville store and made those overmeasures to duty which after
all are not sacrifice, but only the sure sign of that in an in-
dividual which marks him as better than the common clay.

In the springtime of life he had too little of university
life, but this all the more whetted his appetite for mental
foods. And his extensive travel abroad and his habitual read-
ing all had an educational object, until Col. Smith throughout
his maturer years was usually one of the most refreshingly
informed in any group. Had his start been different, how-
ever, he would likely have gravitated to those pursuits for
which his splendid personality, broad views, and aptness of
statement fitted him, and Illinois would have been credited
Avith another worth while statesman.

He was a public servant none the less, for his inclinations
were patriotic as they were generous. Loyalty to his country

304

was a part of the atmosphere which he breathed. He invited
it in his happy nuptial alliance, in his Civil War record, in his
Spanish War devotion, in his supreme zeal throughout the
world war ; and his glory was that he saw this reflected in his
younger kin.

The warmth of his altruism will be missed. The influence
of his life will remain. ' '

Eev. W. B. Hindman, his pastor, standing beside his
casket, amoilg other things said :

' ' The memory of the Just is Blessed !

There is but one place to go at such a time as this. It
is to the word of God. Anything that man might say would
be out of place. We want comfort and strength that is sure
and abiding. To him death has simply been an incident in
that larger hfe which he found in the fellowship of the master
whom he loved. We cannot mourn for him who has gone.
But we sorrow because his gain has been our loss. We shall
miss his kindly face, his gentle smile, his helpful words. He
lived the complete life and its completeness must be a source
of strength to each one of us.

We mark the lapse of time by the vanishing faces of the
dead and the hushing of familiar voices, but our sad abstrac-
tion is happily broken by the reflection that the day, of which
the prophet spoke, has dawned for our fellow laborer 'that
day when the Lord of Hosts shall be for a crown of glory and
for a diadem of beauty unto His faithful servants. '

He obtained without seeking it, an impressive weight
among his felloAvmen because of the strength of an unusual
and forcible character ; a character which never coveted ease,
but deliberately chose the steep and rugged path where duty
led the way and useless luxury dare not invade. The efforts
thus involved were essential to the fibre of his being and
through incessant devotion to the daily round he came to his
proper upward motion to the higher life where he could not

305

be swerved from the kingly road that 'way of the just which
shineth brighter and brighter unto the dawning of the day.'

Constant ministry shone and was reflected in unmounted
grace and thoughtful care.

It was fidelity. In things great and small with exactitude
and scrupulous honor, he kept the faith. His profession as a
Christian gentlemen did not dissolve into mere rhapsodies ; he
did not escape the present world and its burdens by postpon-
ing essential things to the eternal state beyond. He chose the
better part and was diUgent in business, fervent in spirit,
serving the Lord.

Conscience and intellect united in him upon one object,
the truth as he understood the truth. This attribute was
rooted in him and he would not suffer it to be removed what-
ever else was shaken. His life has been a benediction to all
who knew him. ' '

At a memorial meeting of the University Club of Bloom-
ington. President Felmley of the State Normal University of
Normal, Col. Smith having been for years an honorary but
active member of the club, in a most interesting paper read
by Mr. Felmley, voiced the sentiments of the club.

I am impelled here to make a few quotations from that
paper :

"In the death of Colonel Dudley Chase Smith which oc-
curred on May 22, 1920, this community lost a man who for
more than half a century had been one of its most prominent
and highly respected citizens. Although he had not held
public office, or been engaged in active business during this
period he was widely known throughout the state and beyond
its border because of his uprightness of character, his exten-
sive knowledge of men and affairs, his interest in the public
welfare, and his liberal contributions to causes for promoting
human betterment. His story is the story so frequently found
in America, the land of opportunity, the story of a youth of

306

slender resources rising to affluence and a commanding posi-
tion by virtue of his pluck, his strength of purpose, and ster-
ling character.

It is of the highest importance to young men and women
to know this story and to realize that success in life does not
come by accident, and is not achieved by the unworthy. * * *

He was the seventh child and only son of a family of ten.
The family lived in a log house in a frontier settlement 80
miles from Alton, the nearest market. The simple home was
a hive of industry where every member under the leadership
of the mother did his or her part toward the support of the
family. The house was a model of cleanliness and order, the
children always neatly dressed and well cared for. Some
books had been brought from Indiana which were shared with
the neighbors, and Addison Smith was unwearied in his
efforts to give to his children and to everyone else of his
acquaintance the best literature obtainable. * * *

In his private life Col. Smith was simple and unostenta-
tious. Most men of his means with no investments holding
them in so modest a community as Normal would have built a
residence on some Lake Shore Drive where he might have men
and women of equal wealth and social experience for neigh-
bors and associates. Not so was Col. Smith. He was most
democratic, fair-minded, and considerate of the opinions of
others. I think I have not known any one who valued men
more justly according to their worth and with less considera-
tion for the adventitious circumstances of family or wealth
or social position. * * *

In what may be called his private and personal life Col.
Smith seems early to have settled upon those rules of action
that conduce to the great ends of life, temporal existence, and
the surest means of happiness, health, fulness of life, length
of days, abundance, honor, love, obedience, troops of friends.
No intoxicants or narcotics, no tobacco, tea or coffee, through
which we pay for the exhilaration of today by cutting off our

307

tomorrow ever touched his lips. He knew no illness except
from his wound at Shiloh and some physical injuries. '

♦ >>

At the church of Col. Smith's mother in Shelby ville,
John D. Miller, in a service held in memory of Col. Smith,
among other things said:

**It was my happy privilege to assist him in his business
over the long period of thirty-one years. Few young men had
such expert business training as I enjoyed under him. Dur-
ing all these years, with business perplexities, opportunities
for friction and misunderstanding, he ever maintained that
even temper and manifested a spirit of kindness, patience and
charity.

This was a most remarkable exhibition of a strong and
broad mind, and I often thought he would have made a most
efficient treasurer for our state or Federal Government.

In all transactions he desired only his dues, but was very
accurate in his accounts and affairs.

In addition to his financial ability and business acumen
I could but admire him on account of his faith in the verities
of Christianity. He told me he believed in the inspiration of
the Bible and the Deity of Jesus as the Son of God and Savior
of men. * * * "

There is one other phase of Col. Smith's life that should
be mentioned.

He was a Republican; he never had an office, never
wanted one, but he was deeply interested in township, county,
state and national politics and never shirked the duty of
voting. It goes without saying that in private conversation
and in political speeches he never resorted to vulgar person-
aUties or made specious charges against his opponents or
their party. He freely accorded to others what he claimed
for himself, freedom of thought and speech on all questions
within the law.

308

Mr. Felmley said of him : ' ' He was one of the little hand-
ful of Republicans to stand by Lincoln in his memorable
debate with Anthony Thornton at Shelbyville, June 15th,
1856."

He had witnessed the growing effrontery of the slave
power during the administration of Buchanan.

Had seen the inevitable conflict coming, and when the
hour struck he was ready.

"He took a deep interest in public affairs, like most
young men of his day, he was drawn into the Republican
party in its early history, unquestionably the party of human
rights, and national progress.

In riper years he clung to its best traditions. ' '

He had had experience in war, his blood stained the soil
of Shiloh, he had risked his Hfe on the battle field, and the
wearing strain of camp and march.

He had seen his comrades fall : He knew of the orphans
and widows in the devastated south and all over northern

states.

He knew of untold waste and destruction of property and
in the great world war that for nearly five years had made
the earth one great charnel-house, leaving debt that will take
the next ten generations to pay and he naturally used the
words of our great Gen. Grant "Let us have peace."

He was a personal friend of Ex-President Taft and he
ardently hoped a scheme might be devised that would for-
ever banish war from the world. He cherished the hope that
when Mr. Wilson promulgated his fourteen points and de-
clared he was for open covenants openly arrived at, that a
solution might be reached. He did not permit himself to
criticise the President for personally abandoning the White
House and sailing away to Europe, though in talking with me

309

he said in substance it would have been better to have sent a
commission as other Presidents had done. In saying this he
voiced the sentiment of a great majority of the people of the
United States.

After a long delay of six months, with absolutely no in-
formation of what was being done at Paris, when the Presi-
dent for some unexplained and inscrutable reason after reach-
ing home refused to let the United States Senate and the
people whose servant he was, see the League, and claimed he
alone was responsible for it. Col. Smith wrote me he was all
in the dark and could see no dawn.

When after weary weeks of waiting the Senate got a
copy and a majority of the Senate, a majority of the Demo-
cratic Senators even, refused to adopt it without reservations,
the Colonel expressed his idea that the reservations were for
the safety and welfare of the United States and he hoped
they would be adopted.

KnoAving him as I have for 60 years, I am fully satisfied
that he would never have risked his home and native land, to
that untried, unamended, so-called League of Peace.

In the passing of Colonel Smith the State of Illinois has
lost a noble citizen — a man of the pioneer type — loyal to his
country, his church and his family.

New occasions call for new men and new ideas. It wiU
be well with the nation if those who succeed him follow the
example set them by Dudley Chase Smith.

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS OF THE ILLINOIS STATE
HISTORICAL LIBRARY AND SOCIETY.

No. 1. 'A Bibliography of Newspapers published in Illinois prior to 1860. Pre-
pared by Edmund J. James, Ph. D., and Milo J. Loveless. 94 pp. 8 vo. Spring-
field, 1899.

No. 2. 'Information relating to the Territorial Laws of Illinois passed from 1809
to 1812. Prepared by Edmund J. James, Ph. D., 15 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1899.

No. 3. *The Territorial Records of Illinois. Edited by Edmund J. James, Ph. D.,
170 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1901.

No. 4. 'Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society for the year 1900.
Edited by E. B. Greene, Ph. D., 55 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1900.

No. 5. 'Alphabetical Catalog of the Books, Manuscripts, Pictures and Curios
of the Illinois State Historical Library. Authors, Titles and Subjects. Compiled by
Jessie Palmer Weber. 363 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1900.

Nos. 6 to 24. 'Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society for the years
1901-1918. (Nos. 6 to 18 out of Print.)

'Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. I. Edited by H. W. Beckwith, President
of the Board of Trustees of the Illinois State Historical Library. 642 pp. 8 vo.
Springfield, 1903.

'Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. II. Virginia Series, Vol. I. The Cahokia
Records, 1778-1790. Edited by Clarence Walworth Alvord. CLVI and 663 pp. 8 vo.
Springfield, 1907. .

'Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. HI. Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858.
Lincoln Series, Vol. I. Edited by Edvrin Erie Sparks, Ph. D. 627 pp. 8 vo. Spring-
field, 1908.

'Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. IV. Executive Series, Vol. I. The Gover-
nor's Letter Books, 1818-1834. Edited by Evarts Boutell Greene and Qarence Wal-
worth Alvord. XXXII and 317 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1909.

Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. V. Virginia Series. Vol. II, Kaskaskia
Records, 1778-1790. Edited by Qarence Walworth Alvord. L. and 681 pp. 8 vo.
Springfield, 1909.

'Illinois Historical Collections. Vol. VI. Bibliographical Series, VoL I, News-
papers and Periodicals of Illinois, 1814-1879. Revised and enlarged edition. Edited
by Franklin William Scott. QV and 610 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1910.

•Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. VII, Executive Series, Vol. II. Governors'
Letter Books. 1840-1853. Edited by Evarts Boutell Greene and Charles Manfred
Thompson. CXVIII and 469 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1911.

'Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. VIII. Virginia Series, Vol. III. George
Rogers Qark Papers, 1771-1781. Edited with introduction and notes by James Alton
James. CLXVII and 715 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1912.

•Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. IX. Bibliographical Series. Vol. II. Travel
and Description, 1765-1865. By Solon Justus Buck. 514 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1914.

311

Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. X. British Series, VoL I. The Critical Period,
1763-1765. Edited with introduction and notes by Cljirence Walworth Alvord and
Qarence Edwin Carter. LVIl and 597 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1915.

Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. XI. British Series, Vol. II. The New Re-
gime, 1765-1767. Edited with introduction and notes by Clarence Walworth Alvord
and Qarence Edwin Carter. XXVIII and 700 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1916.

lUinois Historical Collections, Vol. XII. Bibliographical Series, Vol. III. The
County Archives of the State of Illinois. By Theodore Calvin Pease. CXLI and 730
pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1915.

Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. XIII. Constitutional Series, Vol I. Illi-
nois Constitutions. Edited by Emil Joseph Verlie. 231 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1919.

Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. XIV. Constitutional Series, Vol. II. The
Constitutional Debates of 1847. Edited with introduction and notes by Arthur
Charies Cole, XV and 1018 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1919.

•Bulletin of the Illinois State Historical Library, Vol. 1, No. 1, September, 1905.
Illinois in the Eighteenth Century. By Clarence Walworth Alvord. 38 pp. 8 vo.
Springfield.

♦Bulletin of the Illinois State Historical Library, Vol. I, No. 2. June 1, 1906.
Laws of the Territory of Illinois, 1809-1811. Edited by Clarence Walworth Alvord-
34 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1906.

•Circular Illinois State Historical Library, Vol. 1, No. 1. November, 1905. An
Outline for the Study of Illinois State History. Compiled by Jessie Palmer Weber
and Georgia L. Osborne. 94 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1905.

•Publication No. 18. List of Genealogical Works in the Illinois State Historical
Library. Compiled by Georgia L. Osborne. 8 vo. Springfield, 1914.

•Publication No. 25. List of Genealogical Works in the Illinois State Historical
Library. Supplement to Publication No. 18. Compiled by George L. Osborne. 8 vo.
Springfield, 1918.

Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. Vol. I, No. 1. April, 1908, to
Vol. XIII, No. 2, July, 1920.

Journals out of print, Vols. I, II, HI, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, No. 1 of VoL IX, No.
2 of Vol. X.

Vol. 13 OCTOBER, 1920 No. 3

JOURNAL

OF THE

Illinois State
Historical Society

*SSsNs:T&-*

Published Quarterly by the

Illinois State Historical Society

Springfield, Illinois

Entered at Washington. D. C. as .Second Class Matter under act of Congress of July 16, Ifl'-*) ;

accepted for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in section 1103,

Act of October 3, 1917. authorized on July 3, 1918.

[Printed by authority of the State of lUinois]

printed U IhehcmseoT
"^EVERINCHAUS

JOURNAL

OF THE

ILLINOIS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Jessie Palmer Weber, Editor

Associate Editors:

Edward C. Page

Andrew Russel H. "W. Clendenin

George W. Smith

OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY.

President
Dr. Otto L. Schmidt Chicago

First Vice President
George A. Lawrence Galesburg

Second Vice President
L. Y. Sherman Springfield

Third Vice President
Richard Yates Springfield

Fourth Vice President
Ensley Moore Jacksonville

Directors
Edmund J. James, University of Illinois . . Urbana-Champaign

E. B. Greene, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Mrs. Jessie Palmer Weber Springfield

Charles H. Rammelkamp, President Illinois College

Jacksonville

George W. Smith, Southern Illinois State Normal University

Carbondale

Orrin N. Carter Chicago

Richard V. Carpenter Belvidere

Edward C. Page, Northern Illinois State Normal School

DeKalb

Andrew Russel Jacksonville

Walter Colyer Albion

James A. James, Northwestern University Evanston

H. W. Clendenin Springfield

John H. Hauberg Rock Island

Secretary and Treasurer
Mrs. Jessie Palmer Weber Springfield

Assistant Secretary
Miss Georgia L. Osborne Springfield

Honorary Vice Presidents
The Presidents of Local Historical Societies

CONTENTS.

I. Officers of the Society v

II. Appeal to the Historical Society and the General

Public for contributions of Historical Material ix

III. Arthur Charles Cole. Illinois Women of the

Middle Period 312

IV. A. Milo Bennett. The Building of a State. The

Story of Illinois • 324

V. Cynthia, J. Capron. Life in the Army 355

VI. Diaiy. Salome Paddock Enos, 1815-1860. With

an introduction by Louise I. Enos 370

VII. William Epler. Some personal recollections of

Peter Cartwright 378

VIII. A. V. Pierson. History of the Selma Methodist

Episcopal Church 385

IX. Miss Mary Coles. Daughter of Governor Ed-
ward Coles. 183-1-1920. An appreciation. By
Florence P. Caldwell 389

X. Charles E. Cox. Some Things I Did in My 88th

Year 393

XI. Early Juvenile Temperance Society. Springfield,

Illinois ". 396

XII. Editorials 401

XIII. Necrology.

Alonzo L. Kimber 425

Edward L. Merritt 426

XIV. List of Publications of the Illinois Historical

Library and Society 430

AN APPEAL TO THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC.

Objects of Collection Desired by the Illinois State
Historical Library and Society.

(Members please read this letter.)

Books and pamphlets on American history, biography,
and genealogy, particularly those relating to the West ; works
on Indian tribes, and American archaeology and ethnology;
reports of societies and institutions of every kind, educational,
economic, social, political, cooperative, fraternal, statistical,
industrial, charitable ; scientific publications of states or socie-
ties ; books or pamphlets relating to all wars in which Illinois
has taken part, especially the collection of material relating
to the recent great war, and the wars with the Indians; pri-
vately printed works ; newspapers ; maps and charts ; engrav-
ings ; photographs ; autographs ; coins ; antiquities ; encyclo-
pedias, dictionaries, and bibliographical works. Especially
do we desii'e —

EVERYTHING RELATING TO ILLINOIS.

1. Every book or pamphlet on any subject relating to
Illinois, or any part of it; also every book or pamphlet writ-
ten by an Illinois citizen, whether published in Illinois or else-
where; materials for Illinois history; old letters, journals.

2. Manuscripts; narratives of the pioneers of Illinois;
original papers on the early history and settlement of the
territory; adventures and conflicts during the early settle-
ment, the Indian troubles, or the great rebellion, or other
wars ; biographies of the pioneers ; prominent citizens and
j)ublic men of every county, either living or deceased, together
with their portraits and autographs; a sketch of the settle-
ments of every to^waiship, village and neighborhood in the
State, with the names of the first settlers. We solicit articles
on every subject connected with Illinois history.

3. City ordinances, proceedings of mayor and council;
reports of conunittees of council ; pamphlets or papers of any
kind printed by authority of the city; reports of boards of
trade and commercial associations; maps of cities and plats
of town sites or of additions thereto.

4. Pamphlets of all kinds; annual reports of societies;
sermons or addresses delivered in the State ; minutes of church
conventions, synods, or other ecclesiastical bodies of Illinois ;
political addresses; railroad reports; all such, whether pub-
lished in pamphlet or newspaper.

5. Catalogues and reports of colleges and other insti-
tutions of learning ; annual or other reports of school boards,
school superintendents and school committees; educational
pamphlets, programs and papers of every kind, no matter
how small or apparently unimportant.

8. Maps of the State, or of counties or townships, of any
date; views and engravings of buildings or historic places;
drawings or photographs of scenery, paintings, portraits, etc.,
connected with Illinois history.

9. Curiosities of all kinds ; coins, medals, paintings ; por-
traits, engra^dngs ; statuary ; war relics ; autograph letters of
distinguished persons, etc.

It is important that the work of collecting historical ma-
terial in regard to the part taken by Illinois in the great war
be done immediately, before important local material be lost
or destroyed.

In brief, everything that, by the most liberal construc-
tion, can illustrate the history of Illinois, its early settlement,
its progress, or present condition. All will be of interest to
succeeding generations. Contributions will be credited to the
donors in the published reports of the Library and Society,
and will be carefully preserved in the Statehouse as the prop-
erty of the State, for the use and benefit of the people for
all time.

Your attention is called to the important duty of collect-
ing and preserving everything relating to the part taken by
the State of Illinois in the great World War.

Communications or gifts may be addressed to the Libra-
rian and Secretary.

(Mrs.) Jessie Palmer Weber.

ILLINOIS WOMEN OF THE MIDDLE PERIOD

By Arthur Charles Coi.e

The American West has traditionally been pictured in
the figure of the sturdy pioneer whose trusty rifle warned
off the hostile red-skin, whose powerful axe challenged the
\vilderness and fashioned his rude cabin, and whose hoe and
plow broke the soil for the rudimentary agriculture that
meant life to the first generation of frontiersmen. It remains
to be shown that the conquest of the western wilds was con-
ditioned upon the domestic partnership in which the pioneer
woman played no minor role. The heroine of the frontier
was not merely, as some one has said, that "gaunt and sad-
faced woman sitting on the front seat of the wagon, follow-
ing her lord where he might lead, her face hidden in the same
ragged sunbonnet which had crossed the Appalachians."
Hers was more than the role of housewife — of feeding a lord
and master and his progeny and administering to their
physical comforts. She kept the house, to be sure; she did
the quilting, the washing, the preserving of beef and pork;
she made the candles and the family clothes. But the frontier
woman had other occupations, the nature and significance of
which have found little understanding in later generations.

The "women folks" of the frontier "could alius find
something to du" around the barns and sheds, and, more, in
the fields themselves.* The realm of woman's work did not
end at the threshold of her lord's domain. She was his
partner and together they labored toward the goal of success.
She must share his burdens, but she did so as his equal. It
was not, then, commands to an inferior that secured her co-
operation; it was a tribute to a sex equality which had its
place in that pure democratic atmosphere of the frontier.

The very hardships of the frontier tore down old customs
and estabUshed new values. But, just as the frontier was a

'See Tillson, Chriariana Holmes, A Woman's Story of Pioneer Illinois,

312

313

moving and changing force, so conditions altered themselves
with the steady flow of the westward movement. The second
generation was better able to respond to the appeals of
eastern customs and traditions, even to transplant them to
western soil. One very suggestive index of the passing of
the frontier can be found in the new status of women and
their new reaction to life about them. The frontier departed
before the forces that made for specialization and for a divi-
sion of labor, and woman's sphere was redefined by the same
forces.

As the frontier Mngeringly bade its adieu, leisure mo-
ments came to the wives and mothers of the West; and,
simultaneously, a blind groping for pursuits to take the
place of frontier occupations. The result was a larger part
by women in organizations for social and educational pur-
poses. They became active along religious hues ; they formed
sewing societies, reading circles, women's clubs; they came,
particularly in Indiana, to take a leading part in library asso-
ciations. The women began also to bear the burden of the
responsibility of the work of organizing the anti-slavery cru-
sade; the men w^ere often quite "content with the humbler
task of co-operation by supplying the sinews of war." The
West still showed less consciousness than the East "of any
conflict between the peculiar duties of men and those of women
in their relations to common objects."^

In the late forties, the frontier passed slowly from the
prairies of Illinois to the trans-Mississippi West. Simul-
taneously the pioneer woman began to disappear. Her suc-
cessor not only had less taste for heavy physical tasks but
even aspired to the eastern role of "lady." This required
domestic service from servants engaged to take the place of
the mistress. The resident population furnished few young
women who failed to share the western spirit of optimism
and opportunity to the extent of accepting the lot of an in-
ferior group. Attention was drawn therefore to the surplus
female population of the eastern cities; by co-operation
with the AVomen's Protective Immigration Societies of New
York and Philadelphia, the women of the prairie toAvns of
Illinois were supplied with a quota of domestic helpers who

^Macy. the Anti-Slavery Crusade, 46. "There was cotnplete equality between husband and wife
brcau«e their aims were identical and each rendered the service most convenient and most needed. . .
Women did what men could not do." Ibid., 47.

314

relieved still further the labor pressure upon the western
Avife and mother.^

This relief left opportunity for other types of feminine
enterprise. The sewing society, with all its ramifications, was
the obvious stopgap; but it alone did not suffice. At times
of stress it enlarged its scope still farther, as when the women
of Chicago were aroused by bleeding Kansas to organize a
"Kansas Women's Aid and Liberty Association," with
active auxiliaries in the to^vns and villages of northern Illi-
nois. Even the less courageous sewing societies took a part
in the work for the relief of the distressed sisters in Kansas.*

A new crusading spirit drew the women into the ranks
of the temperance movement. In 1850 "Ladies' Temperance
Unions" or societies appeared in the chief cities and towns
to aid in the organized attack upon liquor. County organi-
zations followed, and in 1856 a call was sent out by women
of Chicago and vicinity for a state convention to organize a
Women's State Temperance Society. All of these organi-
zations demanded literary activity from their members in the
preparation of addresses; they also gave to the women of
the state some of their tirst experience in speechmaking.
In 1885, Mrs. Fonda, an agent of the New York Ladies'
Temperance Society, made an extensive lecture tour through
Illinois. One of her first addresses was in Springfield, where
she spoke before an audience of citizens and members of the
legislature. She even penetrated into "darkest Egypt"
where, according to one of its spokesmen, "the use of intoxi-
cating drinks seems more natural than the use of water."
At every point she was met with a cordial welcome, with
good audiences, and vnih generous collections.'* Many of her
audiences were strongly impressed by their first experience
in listening to the eloquence of a woman lecturer.

But there was emotion as well as intelligence in the
women's part in the temperance movement. The time called
for a St. George to slay the "Demon Rum" and the women
entered the field. Enraged feminine victims of the liquor
traffic enlisted under the banners of local prototypes of Carrie
Nation and were led in destructive assaults against the of-

»S<!e Cole. Era of the Civil War. IS.

'Chicaeo Wtckly Democrat. June 21. 28. 1:.56.

'.Mrs. Fonda at tht close of her tour congratulated herself on the "very large, still and respectful
audiences.*' and "generous contributions made by them.** See her letter of April 23, 1855, to the Cairo
City Times in the issue of May 2, 1855.

315

fending groggeries ; armed with hatchets, rolling pins, broom-
sticks, kitchen knives and tare shovels, thej^ routed the enemy,
leaving empty barrels and broken glasses and decanters to
decorate the streets. One of the tirst of such raids occurred
in Milford, Iroquois county, in 1854; Lincoln had a similar
party in 1855 ; in the following year twenty or thirty women
of Farmington, "backed up and protected by a crowd of 300
men and boys," cleaned out every grogshop in the commu-
nity and secured so much applause from the newspaper of
the neighboring town of Canton that the temperance women
of the connnunity came to the rescue of the city's prohibitory
ordinance by raiding the shop of an offender and resolved
that as often as the i^ractice was resumed in the eonmiunity,
they would rid themselves of its curse, "peaceably if we can,
forcibly if we must." Women in the town of Winnebago not
onh' emptied the casks of a local liquor dealer but treated
him to a ride out of town on a rail (Rock River Democrat,
August 31, 1858). All these served as precedents for later
raids until it became a question as to whether city officers
could vripe out the liquor traffic by law enforcement or
whether it would be left to the women. As the Aurora Beac-
on, May 13, 1858, facetiously and ungrammatically put it:
"We wait to see who to throw up our hat for — the Women,
or the Cit}' Officers." Many of the local newspapers accorded
these militant tactics a silent approval; the editor of the
Ottawa Free Trader, however, called such measures "high-
handed, lawless, and not to be approved" and the Joliet
Signal held that the husbands of the women should be com-
pelled to pay damages since "such outrages upon the prop-
erty and rights of others are becoming too frequent."" At
one time it was rumored that one of the married women of
Aurora had been arrested at the suit of a local whiskey seller,
although no raiding party had been staged, mth the result
that the women held an indignation meeting and adopted a
set of stirring resolutions.'

These aggressive movements of the women doubtless at-
tracted more attention than their active efforts in the regu-
larly organized temperance movement. In the main they
worked quietly and in good temper, "in a spirit of kindness,"
read a flattering account in the Rockford Register, December

"Oiutca Free Trader, April 10, 1851; ]oliel Signal, June 8, 1858
'Rockford Register, March 13, 1858.

316

25, 1858. "We believe," wrote the editor, that "the move-
ment Avhich the ladies have initiated for the attempted sup-
pression of the liquor traffic, to be justifiable, and a legitimate
sphere for her labors for the suppression of a vice in which
she is so largelj^ the sufferer." Temperance reform was
materially furthered by the women who confined their activi-
ties to writing and delivering addresses and sending them to
the newspapers for publication.^

In time signs began to appear that women would demand
admission into the professional field. Pioneer women editors,
preachers, and physicians in the East began to atti'act con-
siderable attention. Mrs. Jane Gray Swisshen's venture as
editor of the Pittsburg Visitor received wide notice; her views
on the rights of women were extensively clipped and her edi-
torial efforts together with those of Mrs. Anne E. McDowell
in her Philadelphia Women's Advocate were variously ap-
plauded and condemned by the editorial fraternity of Illinois.
In March, 1855, the BeUeviUe Advocate announced that it
expected shortly "to have the pleasure of introducing to the
notice of our readers another new paper, published nearer
home, and edited by a lady friend of ours. We masculines
had better look to our time-honored 'rights.' When women
invade the sanctum and mount the tripod, it is time that a
voice were raised in remonstrance; else, we may find Hke
Othello, when too late to apply a remedy, that our 'occupa-
tion's gone.' "^

For the time few complained against the traditional
monopoly of the male sex in professional occupations. Mar-
riage or hopes of marriage held the interest of most women,
for as yet the male demand for domesticity was insatiable in
a section where woman was in a marked minority. The first
women in Illinois to demonstrate publicly their ability to
compete with men in the professions were emissaries carry-
ing the gospel of "woman's rights" from the East. Such in
a sense was the case even Avith Mary A. Livermore, who for
a time concealed her activities behind the name of her hus-
band, an eastern Universalist minister who located first at
Quincy and then in Chicago. Mrs. Livermore was a frequent
contributor to denominational papers and was probably the

Sor Rockford Reei'ler. December 25, 1858; AuTora Beacon February 4, 1858.
'BellevUte Advocate, March 14, 1855; cf. III. Stale Journal, July 23, 1850.

317

"real editor" of The New Covenant, the Universalist organ
at Cliieago which carried her husband's name on the editorial
page. In this way she laid the foundation for her later role
of leadership in the woman's movement.

The early woman preachers naturally aroused consider-
able excitement. In 1853 the Eeverend R. F. Ellis, Baptist
minister at Alton, rejoiced that he was at length able to scotch
the rumor that Miss Antoinette L. Bro^vn had been ordained
as Baptist pastor of South Butler, Wayne county, New York ;
he felt relieved that her denominational connection was with
another sect, the Congregationalist ; but regretted that the
act of ordination had taken place in a Baptist house of wor-
ship. He could only hope that the Baptists had repented of
having allowed the use of their building for this purpose,
"so repugnant to Baptist usages.'""

Within four years his Baptist flock experienced almost
directly the invasion of a woman preacher. About 1857 a
Mrs. Hubbard came to Madison county and requested the
privilege of speaking in the old Mount Olive meeting house
outside Alton; a storm of protest arose from the male mem-
bers of the Baptist congregation but when the objections
were broken down, a crowded house greeted the innovator.
Thenceforth she was received vdth a hearty welcome in all
her appearances before that congregation." Another early
itinerant woman preacher of the late fifties was Mrs. Lily
Henry, who later made her home at Bunker Hill, Illinois. The
precedent established in the cases of Mrs. HublDard and Mrs.
Henry seems to have cleared the atmosphere of much of the
opposition to woman preachers, so that those who followed in
their footsteps encountered fewer obstacles.

The woman teachers of early Illinois were largely eastern
emigrants. In the period after 1847 the Ilhnois Education
Society and the National Educational Society, through its
agent, Ex-Governor Slade of Vermont, cooperated to transfer
systematically to the West classes of young women as mis-
sionaries in the cause of education. Illinois received a large
share of these importations which were enthusiastically wel-
comed. Western advocates of education only complained that
they were not brought on fast enough to make up for constant

^"Allon Courier, October 13, 1853.

"Stahl, "Early Women Preachers in Illinois," in Illinois State Historical Society, Journal IX, 484-

318

desertions. The demand for wdves was often greater than
that for teachers, so that two-thirds of them abandoned the
professional field and settled down to domestic life before
a period of five years had elapsed. "Instead of teaching
other folks ' children, ' ' remarked a contemporary, they ' ' soon
find emplojTnent in teaching their own.'"^

Meanwhile provision was made for training a local
supply of teachers at the new state noiTaal school and young
women began to be attracted to this opportunity to secure
economic independence. Thus constantly did the professional
horizon for the female sex ^\dden; by 1859 there graduated
from Sloan's Central Commercial College of Chicago "the
first class of ladies who have received a thorough commercial
education in the West, if not in the United States.""

By this time the much talked of woman's rights move-
ment had borne down upon Illinois from the East. There
was a good deal of confusion as to just what this movement
covered. Liberal-minded editors, like John Wentworth of the
Chicago Democrat, admitted that the laws were "oppressive
toward women in many respects ; " " Let woman plead earn-
estly, boldly," he urged, "with brothers, sons, and husbands,
. . . for justice and her rights, and she uses a power that
will prove effective." "But," he warned, "let her not aspire
to become equal with man. ' '^* William H. Sterrett was known
as a strong woman's rights advocate in the general assembly
where he sponsored such legislation as giving the wife
separate and independent fee in her own property. Other
men who represented radical movements of the day found
courage to present the new woman's propaganda before the
public ; the versatile H. Van Amringe of Chicago pleaded for
woman's rights and listed the cause with land reform and
abolition in his lecture repertoire.

Neither such advocates nor the woman champions who
entered the lists advocated the widening of the suffrage
franchise or the eligibility of women to office-holding. Ad-
mitting a distinct sphere for womankind, the woman 's rights
forces insisted upon the injustice of contemporary legal
discriminations as to property-holding, and in addition

"Illinois Slate Journal, November 28, December 1, 1848; Illinois Sute Register, December 2. 18S1,
August 4, 1853.

''"Chicaeo Press anH Trihune Miv II. 1850.
"Chicago Weekly Democrat, September 17, 1853.

319

claimed those rights, the denial of which would defraud wom-
an's very nature. Confined to the narrow training of the
contemporary female seminary or college, shut out of the high
schools and colleges, many women labored to secure for their
sex equality in education. "Let women be educated," urged
one champion, " 'Tis her right, not the fashionable education
of the boarding school, an education too often, of the head,
at the expense of the heart! There are five kinds of educa-
tion which every woman has a right to: intellectual, moral,
social, physical, and industrial. "^'^

Soon woman propagandists were busy on the platform,
though at first limiting themselves to discourses to members
of their sex on anatomy and physiology. In 1852 Mrs. J.
Elizabeth Jones made an eminently successful lecture tour
through the state followed, in the spring of the following
year, by Mrs. Ann S. Bane. At the same time Miss OHve
Starr Wait, niece of William S. Wait, the Illinois reformer,
actively entered the field. Mrs. Bane had added the topic
"woman's rights," to the subjest matter of her lectures, while
Miss Wait came to give her entire attention to that subject.
For several years Miss Wait addressed large audiences made
up of members of both sexes in all the important towns of
southwestern Illinois, in the region about her native Madison
county. She was a woman of unusual charm. "Her char-
acter, life and attainments stamp her as an ornament to her
country^ to her sex, to her race," declared the Belleville Ad-
vocate, after she had delivered a series of three lectures
before an audience which unanimously requested her to pro-
long her stay and her work of education. Men and women
applauded her efforts and advocated letting her give "the
full length of the reins to her abilities under the guide of her
angelic benevolence."^" In 1855 her lecture tour included the
state capital. Miss Wait had a happy faculty of presenting
her subject in a manner that offended few and attracted many.
"For chaste elocution, happ}^ illustration, beauty of diction
and depth of pathos, these lectures have been but seldom
equaled," wrote a discriminating patron." At the end of
1853 Lucy Stone visited Chicago and then started on a tour

"Allan Courier, January 27, 1854.

"Belleville Advocate, April 27. 1833. An occasional critic cited the bible position of woman: "Man
was first formed, and placed at the head of all the works of the six days, and afterwards woman was
taken from his side."

■■iN. M. McCurdy to Joseph Gillespie, December 15, 1858, Gillespie manuscripts, Chicago Historical
Society. Miss Wait later became the wife of the Honorable Jehu Baker.

320

of the state on a feminist mission. Her womanly earnestness
combined with a manly energy could not but command respect.
"How differently appeared the cause of woman's rights as
set forth by Miss Stone," commented a critic instinctively in-
clined to sympathize with the movement.^* Another active
propagandist of the same period was Mrs. Frances D. Gage
of St. Louis who lectured extensively in the central portion
of the state. '^ In 1858 Horace Maun, the Massachusetts edu-
cator, visited the state and delivered a lecture at Ottawa on
the subject of "Woman."

A good deal of discussion w^as aroused by these stimuli.
The removal of legal restrictions on woman found an increas-
ing number of supporters, even in the legislative halls at
Springfield. A letter even went the rounds of the newspapers
purporting to have been written by Stephen A. Douglas to
Lucy Stone, giving an endorsement of her cause; it proved,
however, to be a hoax which Miss Stone indignantly repu-
diated: "It is not to such men that the Woman's Rights
cause appeals for help."-" Men were found, like the editor
of the Aurora Beacon, who openly professed no objections to
the extension of the rights of suffrage to women: "It will
not make them less lovely nor injure their dispositions. Their
sense of right and justice is as clear, if not clearer, than ours ;
and their innate humanity, in which they greatly exceed us,
will prove no invaluable aid in many cases where those great
principles are involved. If thev wish to vote, why should they
not?"^^

Not all the devotees were able to appreciate the full scope
of the woman question in its legal, political, and philosophical
implications. Sex emancipation for many women came to
mean the elimination of the inequality that grew out of the
traditions of a garb which by ancient custom make "our
women feeble when they might be strong," "stooping when
they might be straight," and "helpless when they might be
efficient." Feminine dress would not permit the vigorous
physical exercise which develops superior intellect, and man,
thus deprived of the society of women in many of his avoca-

"Free Wen, January 5. 1854.

"ItlinoU Smie Journal, January 14, 1854; Alio,. Daily Courier, January 16, 1854; Allan Weekly
Courier, October 5, 1854.

"' Rockford Regisur, September 24, November 5. 1859.

'■ Aurnra Beacon, March 14. 1857. There was a tendency for the Republicans to show greater
favor to the woman's movement than the Democrats, so that some of the latter complained of mixing
up sex emancipation with negro emancipation.

See Belleville Advocale, August 17, 1853; Jotiet Signal, June 17, 1856.

321

tions and diversions, regarded her as his inferior. This was
the argument of the dress reformers, whose adherents demon-
strated their seriousness in 1851 and again in 1858, when
wearers of the bloomer costume, designed by Mrs. Bloomer
of New York, made their appearance on the streets of various
Illinois cities. In June, 1851, a correspondent signing herself
as "Elizabeth" appealed to the Illinois State Register-" to
come out in favor of short skirts; women, she said, decline
longer to be " street-sweepers ' '—they wished to drop the long
dangling mops that constituted the female dress : they wanted
freedom of limbs and the opportunity of making the best of
such charms as a pretty foot and ankle. The editor indulged
in facetious equivocation, but already by that time several
young ladies had taken matters in hand in Bloomington by
appearing in the new bloomer costume and had secured the
endorsement of the local editor. "They attracted the uni-
versal attention and admiration of all who saw them. We
trust now that the ice is broken, the dress mil be adopted by
all," concluded the note on this new development in the
Bloomington Bulletin.-^ Several prominent women of Joliet
promptly adopted the costume and heroically adhered to it
for street dress. The editor of the Signal noted a number
whose garb "did not extend below their 'courtesy benders.'
Well, whose business is it?" he asked. The editor of the
Aurora Beacon applauded when certain young matrons made
their appearance, "decked out in short dresses and pants, to
the great discomfiture of fastidious husbands and a certain
class of maidens, and to the unrestrained delight of young
men and boys." "So far as our notions of this reform are
concerned, we are free to say that vnth some slight improve-
ments in the style adopted by the ladies referred to, we are
decidedly in for it. The dresses are too long, the trousers
should have been gathered and tied just above the ankles, and
the head hear should consist of a hat or turban, a la Turk.
. . . Go on, ladies, as you have begun. The enemies of
this desirable reform may for a time turn up their noses at
you, but rest assured that the more reasonable portion of the
community are wdth you. ' '-^ When the New Harmony plank
road opening was celebrated by a dance at New Harmony in

'■Illinois Slate Register, June 26, 1851.
"^Bloomington Bulletin, in ibid.
^*Aurora Beacon, June 26, 1851.

322

November, 1851, the bloomer costume was worn by "many
fair dancers."" Bloomer parties were held to keep up the
courage of the innovators who braved the gaze of the curious
and the sharp tongues of the town gossips. Many women,
safe from the public eye, enjoyed the comfort and convenience
which the new dress afforded for the performance of house-
Avork. The revival of 1857-8 was quite extensive. The dress
refoiTQ forces organized themselves carefully in several com-
munities. In Aurora the friends of dress reform of both
sexes adopted a strong indictment of the prevailing style of
dress, endorsed the "reform dress," and resolved "that we
mil, by precept and example, by Avord and deed, to the best
of our alDility, encourage a change in woman's apparel, that
shall be in keeping with physiological laws : allow free motion
to everj' part of the bodj% protect and cover, in a proper
manner, the w^earer and materially aid her in attaining that
position side by side with man, neither above him nor beneath
him, but his co-worker in life and its duties, equally capable
of enjoying its pleasures, for which nature designed her, and
give a more correct idea of the natural proportions of the
human form."^" A committee of two men and three women
was then appointed to frame a constitution for the new
"Dress Reform Association." Soon, however, the number
of practicing converts declined and the unterrified became
less zealous over their public appearances; the traditions of
centuries triumphed over the would-be reformers. Other
less dramatic features of the woman's movement absorbed
the interest of those w^ho were motivated by a bona fide femin-
ist philosophy.

The Illinois woman 's movement of the fifties — feeble and
groping in all its efforts — was the infancy of the powerful
force that emerged triumphant in the twentieth century. The
Civil War made new demands and presented new opportuni-
ties to womankind. The scope of every activity was enlarged
and intensified. Women found a broader field of service out-
side of as well as within the home. Their visions were en-
larged as they listened to or participated in appeals for the
negro freedom and his rights ; they perceived the logic of the
demand that members of their sex be accorded the same poli-
tical privileges to which the former victims of chattel slavery

=• CraysvilU Advertiser, in Illinois State Register, November 27, 1851.
"■ Aurora Beacon, April 8. 1858.

323

were admitted. The woman's movement became articulate
and redefined itself in terms broader than those of the pre-
vious decade. In the middle period of Illinois histoiy, there-
fore, the woman's movement was important mainly because
it was a beginning and because this beginning was one of a
number of pieces of testimony to the fact that the frontier
was about to pass from the Ilhnois prairies.

THE BUILDING OF A STATE — THE STORY
OF ILLINOIS

A Lecture by A. Milo Bennett, Delivebed Before the
Press Club of Chicago, August 7, 1918.

EARLY voyagers IN ILLINOIS

Surprising as it may seem to many of us, hunters and
priests in the parties of Marquette, Joliet, LaSalle, Tonti and
Hennepin had explored, and made maps of the \dcinity of
Illinois, before Vermont, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee were
settled or even heard of.

While James II was on the throne of England, and
Louis XIV was King of France; wliile the New England
settlements were threatened vnth extermination by the In-
dians, these intrepid and daring explorers traversed the
valleys of the Illinois, Fox, Des Plaines and Wisconsin rivers.
They mapped out the Mississippi and its tiibutaries. Fran-
quelin's map of 1684 shows how little was known of this
great country. No settlements are shown, for there were
none west of Green Bay at this time.

Settlements and villages were established at Cahokia in
1699 and Kaskaskia, Illinois, in 1700, respectively. This was
years before the birth of Pittsburgh, New Orleans or St. Louis.
This was fifty years before the settlement of Cincinnati, and
one hundred and thirty years before Chicago was laid out as
a town. Kaskaskia was first settled by French Creoles from
the West Indies, and couriers du bois from the settlements
along the St. Lawrence river in Canada.

Kaskaskia, Cahokia and Prairie Du Rocher nearby, had
a population of sixteen hundred tvhite people, and several
hundred slaves and Indians in 1756, before there was any
settlement of any kind in the northern part of Illinois. Kas-
kaskia was located in Randolph County, about 65 miles below
St. Louis, near the junction of the Kaskaskia and Mississippi
rivers. Cahokia was located six miles below the mouth of
the Missouri. It has lost its individuality, but would be a

325

suburb of East St. Louis. Both towns have now disappeared
from the maps. Kaskaskia was the largest town in the West
for many years. It was the capital of the territory for sev-
entj^-eight years and the capital of the State for two years.
These early settlements were under French dominion for
sixty-five years, were governed by the English thirteen
years, and by the State of Virginia six years, before coming
under the jurisdiction of the United States.

General Lafayette visited Kaskaskia in 1825. Nearly
100 years have elapsed and we, through our soldiers, have
but recently returned his call, and "with interest. Lafayette
found a very prosperous and thriving community. A recep-
tion was given in his honor by Governor Edward Coles. He
was entertained by ladies of fashion, back woodsmen and
hunters alike. The costumes of the drawing rooms of France
were worn in those early days, and a high degree of social
culture was maintained. In the rooms of the Chicago His-
torical Society may be seen the long-wristed white kid gloves,
wonderful go-wTis, sUppers, and high-priced ornamental fans
used by the ladies of that day, in the back-woods where
elaborate dress would seem foreign, but we are getting ahead
of our story. It may be well to retrace our steps to the dis-
coveries and exploitations of our first great travelers. Pic-
ture to yourself the wonderful flower-filled valleys which met
the eyes of the pioneer and about which such glomng tales
were told throughout the old world.

THE MOUND BUILDEKS

Many years before modern white men touched the soil of
Illinois, there must have been two or three other distinct
civilizations. Geologists have found in the underlying glacial
drift flint implements of the real paleozoic age, dating back
thousands of years.

The mound builders of more recent years, have left un-
mistakable evidence of a civilization superior to that known
to the Indians. A mound at Cahokia was 75 feet high, 790
feet at its base and 500 feet ^vide. The Trappist monks built
and occupied a monastery on its top for years. Many bronze
implements and other paraphernalia discovered in the ancient
mounds at Mound City, Albany, Turtle Mound, Rockford, and
other parts of the state, proved that cities have risen, fallen

326

and vanished so completely that little evidence remains.
These mounds are scattered from the Atlantic to the Rocky-
Mountains and prove there must have been a large population.

When the early French explorers visited this section,
they found fourteen thousand to twenty thousand Indians
■within the confines of what is now Illinois. They were prin-
cipally of the Algonquin race. But under this classification
were the Ottawas, Iroquois, Chippewas, Pottawatomies, Win-
nebagoes, Cahokias, Peorias, Sacs or Sauks, Foxes and Illini.
The Illini were the original dwellers here, many of whom had
established villages. They were driven back by the Pottawa-
tomies and the Iroquois after numerous skirmishes. From
the Illini the state and river Illinois derived their names.
They were friendly to the first explorers and always remained
friendly, which permitted the early settlements. Old Che-cau-
gua was their most famous chief. He was sent to France and
accorded the honors of a prince — Chicago is said to be named
from him.

The French early learned the value of this vast territory,
Jean Nicollet was sent to explore the Great Lakes, and jour-
neyed down the west shore of Lake Michigan in 1634. He
was the first European to explore Lake Michigan. Louis
Joliet was an intrepid hunter and fur trader who had before
explored the lake regions. He had been as far as Mackinac
where he met and made a friend of Father Marquette. The
Indians had talked much about the "Big River" beyond, and
the two friends made up their minds to find and explore it.

JoHet's report about this region induced the Governor
of Montreal, Canada, to send him in charge of an expedition
for this purpose. With Marquette and a party of five other
hunters and Indians, they set out in two canoes early in 1673.
They paddled the west shore of Lake Michigan, entered the
Fox river, carried their canoes across the portage for several
miles, then down the Wisconsin to the Mississippi, which
they reached June 17. This was a hundred and thirty years
after DeSoto's first discovery of the lower Mississippi. "They
got sails for their canoes, and started down the Father of
Waters with great joy," as Father Marquette states: "We
found the broad plains of Illinois garlanded with majestic
forests, and checkered with wondrous prairies and inland
groves." This most picturesque scene shows the meeting of

327

Marquette and Joliet ■\\'ith the Indians. The Indians informed
them that they were the "Illini." Marquette said to the Chiefs :
"Joliet is an envoy of the Great King in France, sent to dis-
cover new countries, and I am an ambassador of God to en-
lighten them with the Gospel." But he adds, "They scarcely
understood me. ' '

The mini gave them a wonderful Calumet, or Pipe of
Peace, a sign of friendship. It proved to be a useful talisman,
and gained the immediate respect and friendship of the other
Indian tribes, wherever they went. Joliet and Marquette
journeyed as far as the mouth of the Arkansas river. They
retraced their steps to the mouth of the Illinois, they ascended
this to Chicago. They had not found the mouth of the Missis-
sippi, but they became convinced that it emptied into the
'Bay of Mexico," instead of the Pacific Ocean.

Joliet returned to his home in Canada, and was rewarded
by a gift of the Island of Anticosti, near the mouth of the
St. Lawrence river. When the British won that country, he
lost his property. He died in his home in Canada in 1700.
His work was of inestimable value to the future settlement
of Illinois.

Marquette made another trip as far as the site of Peoria
in 1674. He was taken sick and obliged to return. His party
built a log cabin and spent the winter of 1674 on the banks
of the Chicago river. Their cabin was located at a spot now
marked with a cross and an inscription in his honor. This
is about four miles from the mouth of the river at Robey
Street and the south branch. The Historical Society of
Chicago erected this memento and marker. Father Marquette
was born in Leon, France, in 1637. He founded the mission at
Sault Ste. Marie and afterward missions at Mackinac and
St. Ignace. He also founded the first Kaskaskia mission.
His Journal gives us most of our information and the details
regarding their adventures, because Joliet lost his maps and
data by the overturning of his canoe just before he reached
home. The death of the beloved Marquette occurred in Michi-
gan near the mouth of the Marquette river. May 18, 1675.
His only attendants were the faithful Indians who buried Mm.
A beautiful monument and tribute to his memory is located
at Marquette, Michigan.

328

ROBERT DE LA SALLE

111 1780 Sieur Robert De LaSalle, under commission from
De Frontenac, Governor of Canada, set out to find the mouth
of the Mississippi, so widely heralded by Joliet and his party.
Also to claim this country for the French Government.
LaSalle started with a party of thirty-three men, including
Fathers Hennepin and Membre. Henry Toiiti, his life-long
friend, came to Canada with LaSalle, and was lieutenant in
command. Tonti and Father Membre were with him when
he discovered the mouth of the Mississippi river. LaSalle
built a fort at St. Joseph, Michigan, called Fort Miamis.
Passing through Chicago, he found the Indians of the village
away on a hunt. He proceeded down the Kankakee and
Illinois to a point below Peoria. Here he built Fort Creve
Coeur, which means "Fort Broken-heart." He gathered
many tribes around him, promising them protection from the
Iroquois. He then returned to Canada for aid, leaving Tonti
in charge. But during his absence, the fort was destroyed,
through the treachery of some of his o\vn men. LaSalle and
Tonti afterward built Fort St. Louis, just below Ottawa, on
Starved Rock. The party then proceeded down the Illinois
to the Mississippi, and discovered its mouth. He named this
region Louisiana, after Louis XIV. Here he erected a large
cross and the arms of France, inscribed "Louis the Great
King of France, and Na Varre, reigns this 13th day of March,
1682."

Being anxious about Fort St. Louis, LaSalle sent Tonti
back to strengthen the fort. Tonti found disaster. The
peaceful Illini were pounced upon by the war-like Iroquois,
defeated and driven south. Tonti and his party were forced
to return to Mackinac, and it was many months before LaSalle
could find him, although he left the southern territory, sacri-
ficing his ambition, to make the search. And you can imagine
his great joy at finding him. He immediately returned to
France to organize a large expedition to settle the territory
near the mouth of the Mississippi. In this party were 400
people. They sailed in four ships from Rochelle, France.
On the way one ship was lost, another was captured by the
Spaniards, and the party by a very great mistake passed the
mouth of the river and were lost in Texas. His followers
mutinied and deserted. LaSalle set out for help, but was

329

murdered by members of Ms party March 19, 1687 — near the
mouth of the Trinity river. Thus ended the career of the
famous fort builder. He was so called because he built six
different forts, including the first Fort Chartres, near Kas-
kaskia.

Early histories relate that LaSalle was killed by Tonti,
but this cannot be true. LaSalle had the greatest affection
for Tonti, and great regard for his prowess and good judg-
ment. After the loss of one of the forts he had built, and
which was left in Tonti 's charge, he said, "Alas, if I only
could have you in command of every fort I build." This,
and his affectionate letters, would seem to disprove the early
statements. There is more evidence that LaSalle 's lieutenant
in command of his Texas expedition was the guilty man.

Nothing finer is told in history than LaSalle 's heroic
efforts to claim and settle a kingdom for his prince. The
dangers he encountered, the hardships he experienced, and
the progress he made paved the way for future settlements
of this vast empire. No more undaunted soldier ever lived,
and his glory and fame are everlasting. A beautiful statue
in honor of LaSalle stands in Lincoln Park, Chicago. It was
the gift of Judge Lambert Tree and cost $12,000. Other
cities of the northwest have honored themselves, and LaSalle,
by similar monuments.

Henry Tonti was born at Gaeta, Italy, about 1650. He
lost one of his hands in an European war and was called the
"Man uith the Iron Hand." It was his custom to wear a
glove, and the story is told that the Indians regarded him
with superstitious veneration, owing to the powerful blows
he could strike with his hand of iron. He was LaSalle 's true
friend and comrade to the last. As LaSalle had pre\'iously
given up his trip to search for Tonti, so Tonti gave up all of
his possessions to search for LaSalle. He organized two suc-
cessive searching parties and proceeded to the mouth of the
Mississippi and into Texas, in vain endeavors to find him,
and this at a time when the physical effort was almost super-
human. It is said that Tonti died in Biloxi, Mississippi, in
1704. The encyclopedia states that he died at Mobile,
Alabama. The exact location seems somewhat in doubt.
There is a legend that Tonti, as a very old man, returned to
Starved Rock, where he died, and his bones were found at

330

the spot he loved so well. But this story is not given much
credence. There is, however, something of a myth as to the
exact place of his death.

Father Hennepin was a member of LaSalle's party.
After Fort Creve Coeur was built, LaSalle commanded Hen-
nepin and two others to go up the Mississippi to report their
discoveries, and to map the country. Hennepin went as far
as the falls of St. Anthony where he and his companions were
taken prisoners by the Indians. After many months, they
escaped and returned to Green Bay. Father Hennepin has
left valuable records, and when he returned to Europe the
next year, he published two books of his travels and dis-
coveries containing invaluable maps which were new to the
world. He was bom in Ath, Flanders, about the year 1640.
He died at Utrecht, Holland, about 1706.

Starved Rock, on top of which LaSalle and Tonti built
Fort St. Louis in 1682, derived its name from the tragic in-
cident, that a party of Indians driven to the last extremity,
perishing of thirst and hunger, sought refuge there. They
fought until the last man, supposedly about 1807. When the
first settlers arrived, they found the bones of many of the
Indians on top of the rock lying as they had fallen. Starved
Rock rises to a height of 155 feet above the Illinois river and
lies between Ottawa and LaSalle. It was only accessible
from the rear by a steep and winding climb. Here a heavy
barred gate was built on the landward side. The Fort was
impregnable against any force the Indians could bring to
bear. There were 14,000 Indians in camp just beyond and
below this Fort, where the town of Utica now Hes and they
for many years lived in peace.

The only happenings of importance throughout the dif-
ferent sections of the state during the next few years were
the many skirmishes and battles \vith the savages. Reports
of the Indian barbarities therefore left little effect. The
Meramech boulder, near Piano, commemorates a great battle
between the French and Indians in 1730, and the Indians were
defeated.

Pontiac's conspiracy , at the time of the French and In-
dian War 1760-1763, aroused all the Indian tribes of Michigan,
Indiana and Illinois to a frenzy. Depredations on the lives
and property of the settlers were incessant. The settlers

331

were scalped right and left, and every species of cruelty and
terrorism was practiced. The tales of heroism of the pioneers
filled many books. For mutual protection sevei*al families
came together from the East and formed a settlement near
some stream where timber and water were plentiful. The
forests were filled with deer which might be killed for food.
Thus through the help of divine pro^'idence they had venison
and game to eat and thus kept the wolf from the door. The
women and children helped work in the "clearing," or did
anything there was to do. This is the "start" these brave
and good people had when they came into a region filled with
wild animals and merciless Indian savages. Their clothing
was made of buckskin and they wore coonskin caps. These
were their everyday and Sunday clothes. The neighbors went
into the forests and built the rude log church. On one side
they put the seats for the men and boys, and on the other
side they put seats for the girls and their mothers.

The preacher was one of their number, who worked
through the week, studied his bible at night and preached for
tuw or three Jiours on Sunday. But all this adds nothing of
permanent value to history, except that repeated and many
victories finally made the country comparatively safe for new
settlers. Pontiac finally lost the support of the Indians and
eighteen tribes of his confederation deserted him. He was
forced to flee southward and was killed in Cahokia by an
Indian, supposed to be of the Illini tribe, in 1769.

We often find the greatest flights of oratory in some of
the Indian sayings. Po)itiac, Tecumseh, and BlackJiaivk were
as keen as white men. Pontiac used force and threats. He
said to the Illini, "If you do not join us, I will consume your
tribes, as fire consumes the dry grass of the prairie." He
was an implacable foe of the English. On one occasion he
said to an English officer, "The conduct of the French never
gave cause for suspicion, the conduct of the English never
gave rest to it."

Tecumseh, said to General Harrison Avhen he was trying
to pacify the Indians, "Then the Great Spirit must decide the
matter. It is true the President is so far off that he will not
be injured by the war. He may sit still in his towni, and
drink his wine, while you and I will have to fight it out."
They did, and Tecumseh was beaten in the battle of Tippe-

332

canoe, and later, on the Thames, on October the 5th, 1813, in
which battle he was killed. Tecumseh was a Brigadier-Gen-
eral in the English army, and shared the command at the
siege of Fort Meigs. In this fight he protected the American
soldiers from massacre.

When Blackhawk was turned over by the Winnebagoes
to the United States authorities, he said, "Blackhawk is an
Indian ; he has done nothing of which an Indian need to be
ashamed. He has fought the battles of his countrymen
against the white men, who came year after year to cheat
them and take away their lands. You know the cause of our
making war — it is kno\\Ti to all white men — they ought to be
ashamed of it. The white men despise the Indians and drive
them from their homes, but the Indians are not deceitful.
The white men speak bad of the Indian and speak at him
spitefully, but the Indian does not tell lies. Indians do not
steal. Blackhawk is satisfied. He will go to the world of
spirits contented. He has done his duty. His Father will
meet him and reward him. ' '

The one man more responsible than any other for the
rescue of the Northwest was George Rogers Clark. Clark
was rightfully called, "The Man of Iron." He was stalwart
in build, of wonderful physique and strength, and of un-
daunted perseverance and courage. He was just the man for
such an undertaking. He was given a commission by Patrick
Henry, then Governor of Virginia, to raise troops and set
out on the campaign which resulted in the capture of Fort
Gage or Kaskaskia, Vincennes and the Illinois country,
and to capture the country from the English, still in their pos-
session. This is the immortal Patrick Henry, who made the
famous speech, "Give me Liberty or give me Death," and this
is the picture of St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia,
where this historj'-making speech was delivered.

Clark raised about 170 volunteers and with this small
force passed by Fort Massac, on the Ohio River, about
where Metropolis, Illinois, now stands. He then proceeded to
Kaskaskia, where Connnander Rocheblave was acting gov-
ernoi-. By a forced march, under extreme difficulties, and
tradition says, he surprised the people of Kaskaskia in the
midst of a dance. He captured some settlers and outlying
houses and learned that his soldiers were not expected. He

333

posted his men around the dance-hall, he then stepped to the
door-way, and watched the dancing for a few minutes. An
Indian noticing that he was a stranger gave the alarm. Clark
promptly drew his sword and holding up his hand, com-
manded, "Go on with your dancing, but remember you are
now dancing under the flag of Virginia." He held them as
prisoners all night, then after some preliminary conversations
with Father Gibeault and other prominent residents the flag
of Virginia was raised. Rocheblave surrendered Fort Gage
and the settlement of Kaskaskia to the control of Virginia,
in July, 1778.

There is no picture of the first Fort Chartres in existence.
We hereAvith show what is left of the second or great Fort
Chartres, built in 1756 by Commander DeBoisbriant and his
soldiers. The British troops had removed to Fort Gage in
the village of Kaskaskia before Clark's campaign. Before
Clark succeeded in pacifying the Indians and perfecting his
plans, it was the dead of the ^\dnter and impossible to go on,
Clark made friends with Father Gibeault, a Catholic priest,
and the French people. The priest asked Clark if they could
worship in their o\n\ way, something which was prohibited
under English rule. Clark answered, in these words: "An
American commander has nothing to do with any church,
except to save it from insult. By the laws of the Republic, his
religion has as great privileges as any other." The priest and
most of the French families from that time became devoted
champions of the American cause.

Clark used great diplomacy in dealing with the Indians
and they immediately became his friends. The follomng
dramatic speech tells how he did it, "I am a man and a war-
rior, not a councilor, I carry war in my right hand, peace in
my left. I am sent b)^ the great council of Long Knives to
take possession of all to^vns occupied by the English in this
countrj^ to watch the red people, to bloody the paths of those
who attempt to stop the course of the rivers, and to clear the
road for those wiio desire to be in peace. Here is a bloody
belt, and a peace belt, take which you please, behave like men,
but do not let your being surrounded by Long-Knives cause
you to take up one belt mth your hands, while your hearts
take up the other. If you take the bloody path, you can go
in safety and join your friends — the English. We will try

334

then like warriors to see who can stain our clothes with blood
the longest. ' ' They took the peace belt.

Clark sent Father Gibeault and other emissaries to Fort
Vincennes. Reports of Clark's successful government of
Cahokia and Kaskaskia had reached the populace and coupled
with the eloquence of Father Gibeault, it prompted the entire
population of Vincennes to take the oath of allegiance, and
the American flag floated over the fort.

Governor Henry Hamilton, located at Detroit, learning
of this, sent an expedition to capture Clark and his forces,
and these forts. This expedition recaptured Vincennes. Cap-
tain Helm was in charge, with one private, the garrison being
away. Captain Helm posted a cannon in the gate-way, fired
the gun a few times to make it appear that the place was well
defended, and held the entire British force at bay. The Eng-
lish sent an officer to demand surrender. "On what terms?"
demanded Helm. "The treatment of officers and brave men,
and the retaining of your swords," replied Hamilton, and so
Captain Helm surrendered liimself and one private as his total
army, much to the surprise of the British.

Clark daily expected an attack on Kaskaskia, but winter
had already set in, and Hamilton decided to delay the attack
until spring. Clark hearing of this irmnediately prepared to
march on Vincennes. Overcoming almost insurmountable
difficulties, fording streams, in the dead of the winter and for
days at the point of starvation, Clark's soldiers finally
reached Vincennes. He captured several citizens and learned
that the garrison was not expecting an attack. He also cap-
tured a few Indians returning to the fort with the scalps of
Americans. He executed them forthwith, as a warning to the
inhabitants of the town. He then demanded the surrender
of the fort. This was refused and a fierce battle was pre-
cipitated. The English soldiers were no match as marksmen
against the hardy and experienced pioneers. After many
were killed. Fort Vincennes surrendered and in 1779 the flag
of the new Republic flew from the ramparts. Vincennes and
the western country were saved to us and became American
territory. Years after, Clark felt that he had not been fairly
treated. When Congress presented him with a wonderful
sword, it is related that he broke it across his knee, and told
the messengers to take it back. "That he asked for recom-

335

pense and they sent him a present." Sometime after this,
he and his soldiers were rewarded ^\ith the gift of one hun-
dred and fifty thousand acres of land in Louisiana.

The greatest reverence has been shown to his memory,
Indiana has honored him with a heroic monument, which
stands in the City of Indianapolis, and Quincy, Illinois, is
justly proud of an imposing statue in his honor. Clark's
patriotism, endurance and pertinacity in overcoming over-
whelming odds has gained him enduring fame and respect.
He died in his home near Louisville, Ky., February 18th, 1818.
Tecumseh was a crafty villain. He enlisted nearly all
the Indians of the northwest and many of the tribes of the
south on the side of the British in the war of 1812. Generals
St. Clair and Harrison defeated them repeatedly in many im-
portant battles. Finally the entire western country was
wrested from the English forever and security was granted
to the settlements. This resulted in a great influx of people
from all parts of the East, the country began to grow and
prosper and new villages were created everywhere. During
all this time, while settlements in the southwest were prosper-
ing, no attempts seem to have been made to colonize the
northern part of the state, or Chicago. This section was in
oblivion until the arrival of Jean Baptist Point AuSable, a
blackman, in 1779. He was the first actual settler. AuSable
lived on the site of Chicago for 16 years and then disappeared.
It is said that he died at Peoria near Fort Clark.

In 1803 Captain John Wliistler was commanded to pro-
ceed to Chicago to select a site and build a fort. He carried
out these orders and before the winter of 1804 had completed
Fort Dearborn, named for General Dearborn, major general
in the revolution and a secretary of war. This fort was de-
stroyed by Indians, August 15th, 1812, during the war of 1812
and was not rebuilt until 1816. The first residence was built
by AuSable, it was aftei^ward occupied by Joseph LeMai,
who sold it to John Kinzie, who lived in it at this time. Kinzie
was the first permanent settler of Chicago. The old Kinzie
home stood until about 1827.

War had been declared between the United States and
England in June, 1812, Captain Nathan Heald, then in com-
mand of Fort Dearborn, received orders to evacuate, as Mack-
inac and other fortresses had fallen. Heald divided most of

336

the provisions with the Indians, but secretly in the night
poured all the whisky in the river. The Indians learned of
this and, becoming enraged, they had joined Tecumseh's fol-
lowers to aid the English. Captain Heald had reached a
point that is now Prairie Avenue and 18th Street. Here the
Indians who had been following overtook the garrison. A
terrible massacre occurred. The seventy soldiers in the party
fought off hundreds of Indians for hours, but finally on the
promise of safe conduct for the whites, laid down their arms.
No sooner had they surrendered than the Indians murdered
twelve children, and began scalping the women and wounded
soldiers. Terrible vengeance was taken, and the toll of life
was great.

Little Turtle was the Indian Chief under whom this fear-
ful massacre took place. The whites had some friends among
the Indians, and many were saved through the interference
and personal bravery of Black Partridge, another chief who
tried to prevent the occurrence. Captain Heald escaped to
the East, but Captain Wells, a brave soldier, a son-in-law of
Little Turtle, and many soldiers and civilians were killed.

A beautiful monument now stands on the spot where this
massacre occurred. It is known as "Massacre Monument."
It was erected by George M. Pullman. Black Partridge is
depicted in the act of saving Mrs. Heald, who was dangerously
wounded, but who survived.

For four years after this event, Chicago was practically
a wilderness, though the Kinzies and a few families remained.
When the new Fort Dearborn was built in 1816, settlers began
to come. It was not until 1830, however, that Chicago was
platted and laid out. It was incorporated as a village in 1833,
and as a city in 1837.

In 1832 General Winfield Scott came to Chicago by the
way of the Lakes, in command of the regulars against Black-
hawk. While Chicago was struggling for existence, the set-
tlements in the southwest part of the state and elsewhere were
progressing splendidly. Congress had given Illinois a terri-
torial form of Government in 1809, and had given it a name.

The law of 1809 defined its boundaries and created a land
office so that land titles could be perfected. Ninian Edwards
was made the first Governor of Illinois territory. He was
later governor of the state from 1826-1830.

337

Illinois was admitted as a state, being the 21st state
of the Union, in the act of April 18th, 1818. On September
3rd, 1818, President Monroe signed the papers making the
enactment a law. Honorable Shadrack Bond, a pioneer in
the town of New Design, one of the first permanent settle-
ments, was elected as the first Governor, and the state began
a prosperous era. By this time there was a population of
40,000 people in Illinois, pretty well scattered throughout
its territory.

We now come to the famous Blackhawk War. Fort
Dixon so prominently associated wdth this war had been built
within the city limits of Dixon, by Lieutenant Colonel Zachary
Taylor, afterwards President of the United States. Fort
Armstrong was built on the present site of Rock Island in
1816, by General John Armstrong. Forts were estabUshed
by the Government at Fort Madison, Fort Cra^vford at
Prairie Du Chien, and farther north were Forts Winnebago,
Snelling and Green Bay. Under the protection of these
numerous forts, the settlers felt secure, but they were doomed
to disappointment. Indian murmurings were in the air.
Settlers were constantly harassed and killed by followers of
Blackhawk. In a treaty wath the Sac and Fox Indians made
in 1804 by General Wm. Henry Harrison, the Indians gave
the Americans a tract of land near the Rock river. The Red-
men were to have the use of the land until it was sold to in-
dividuals. The treaty was confirmed in several subsequent
treaties. But Blackhawk, for his tribe, said that the treaty
was made without the consent of his people, and was not
binding, adding, "The whites squatted on our lands while
we were away on a winter's hunt, used our fields, burned our
lodges and plowed up our graveyards." The Indians drove
the forty squatters off, which resulted in the great Black-
hawk War.

Blackhawk tried to form a coalition of many tribes
against the whites. Shabbona of the Illini, always a friend of
the white man, and Keokuk of the lowas, refused to join him.
He secured help from the Winnebagoes, Sioux and other
tribes, however, and made raids on all the frontier settle-
ments. Governor John Reynolds and the Governors of Mis-
souri and Wisconsin, under instructions from the war depart-
ment, raised a volunteer army of 8,000 men. General Henry
Atkinson in command of the local regulars was ordered to

338

co-operate with the state troops and to put down the uprising.
It took 8,000 volunteers, 1,800 regulars and cost $2,000,000
to put 400 Indians with their starving families off the land of
which they claimed they had been robbed. Blackhawk was
finally captured and the Indians dispersed and driven into
Avestern Iowa. They were afterward removed to the Indian
territory and placed on a reservation. Blackhawk was a
man of great courage, strength of character, brains and
energy. He first defeated a large force under Stillman at the
battle of Stillman 's Rmi. The Indians drew them into an
ambush and killed many. The rest made a running retreat
back to the Fort. In fact some of them kept on running way
past the Fort and back to their homes, hence the name of the
battle, " Stillman 's Run." Within three weeks after Still-
man's defeat several thousand troops were on the border.
One party under Colonel Henry was sent reconnoitering to-
ward Fort Winnebago. He encountered a heavy force of
Indians, and sent to General Atkinson for reinforcements.
The troops of General Atkinson and Colonel Henry pursued
the Indians so fiercely that forty of their horses dropped
dead from exertion under the terrific pace set by these daring
soldiers. The savages were inflamed mth rage and made the
first charge, but were repulsed after nearly an hour of terrific
fighting, darkness finally preventing the soldiers from killing
the last of the Indians and those of the Indians who had not
been wounded, escaped.

This fight is known as "The Battle of Wisconsin
Heights" and occurred July 21st, 1832.

Several days after the battle of Wisconsin Heights,
Colonel Henry 's command came upon a force of Indians and
the battle of Bad Axe was fought near Prairie Du Sac.
The result of this struggle was that the Indians were forever
driven out of Illinois. On August 27th, a Winnebago Indian
named Chaeter and another Indian named One-Eyed Decorah
betrayed Blackhawk and his two sons into the hands of
Mr. Street, the Indian agent at Prairie Du Chien. On Sep-
tember 21st Blackhawk and the Prophet, Neopope, signed
a treaty ending the war.

After Blackhawk had made the treaty terminating the
war, he was taken to Washington on his way to prison at
Fortress Monroe, by Lieutenant Jefferson Davis, afterwards

339

President of the Confederacy. In an interview with Presi-
dent Johnson, Blackhawk said, "I am a man, and you are
another." He acknowledged no superior. He continued, "I
did not expect to conquer the whites, they had too many
horses, too many men. I took up the hatchet to revenge in-
juries which my people could no longer endure. Had I borne
them without striking, my braves would have said, 'Black-
hawk is a woman — he is too old to be a chief ! ' ' This caused
me to raise the war whoop. I say no more."

Later when he was granted his freedom, he returned to
his people on the Des Moines river reservation. When he
was seventy he made a speech in which he sums up his life's
efforts as follows, "I like my town, my corn-fields, and the
home of my people, I fought for them." This is a brief and
characteristic statement which has immortalized him. What
more can man do, if he thinks he is in the right. He died
October 3, 1838.

A most wondrous statue of Blackhawk by Lorado Taft,
the famous sculptor, is erected at Oregon, Illinois, the home
of ex-Govemor Lowden.

The Indians planted their corn in separate hills or
mounds instead of rows. A field planted by the Indians
themselves, 85 years ago, can still be seen within what is
now the city limits of Rock Island. This field has never been
disturbed. Large trees have gro^vn since that time among
the corn hills. Blackhawk 's great-great-grandson was still
living in 1918.

THE MORMONS

Shortly after the Blackhawk War, some new settlers
came from the East. These were the latter-day-saints or
mormons, who reached the city of Nauvoo in 1839, after being
driven out of Missouri. Joseph Smith was their prophet and
leader. He was the boss of everything. His political power
was great and his influence over the legislature of our state
was such that it gave him a most ridiculous town charter,
which in many respects was entirely contrary to the laws
of the United States. This law permitted him to maintain
one government witliin another. It legalized polygamy, one
of the tenets of his church, contrary to the Constitution of
the United States. He became arrogant and finally state
troops had to arrest him. He was taken to jail at Carthage,

340

the county seat of Hancock County, and while a prisoner, a
mob, consisting of some of the soldiers who had arrested him,
broke into the prison and killed Smith and his brother, not-
withstanding they were permitted the use of their pistols to
defend themselves. Both were killed.

Brigham Young was made the new prophet and leader.
Under him the community thrived and increased rapidly. The
Mormons were Avarned that they must obey the laws or move.
For several years peace reigned, then lawlessness became
rampant and a state bordering on anarchy prevailed. The
people of the entire surrounding territory were disgusted
with their conduct, and frequent fights and quarrels were the
result. At one disastrous raid in 1844 many of the Mormons'
houses and buildings were burned and quite a number of their
community killed. Brigham Young, their leader, saw that
they could not remain, and he wisely decided to move to the
extreme west. Mr. Young had to give up his beautiful home
and "with all his followers numbering over 16,000 moved in
prairie wagons, on foot, and in every class of vehicle over
the golden plains until they reached the site of Salt Lake City.
Here they built up a fijie and prosperous city. By acts of
Congress and laws of the state of Utah, they have been
compelled to give up their polygamous doctrine, which was
the only thing of great consequence against them, and they
now live in peace with all religious societies. The city of
Nauvoo was the most populous city in the state during the
years 1841-42. There were over 2,000 houses and many pre-
tentious buildings, including a great tabernacle, which cost
over $1,000,000.

In 1820 the state capital was moved from Kaskaskia to
Vandalia, which was the seat of the state government until
1836, then it was removed to Springfield. The people of
Springfield contributed the ground for the new building.

The Blaekhawk War brought many men into contact
who afterward became famous in the Mexican and Civil Wars
as well as in private life. First, Captain Abraham Lincoln,
who enlisted as a private, but was speedily commissioned a
captain. The officer who gave him his commission was Lieu-
tenant Robert Anderson, afterward Major Anderson in com-
mand of Fort Sumpter, when the Union soldiers made their
gallant defense against the confederates.

341

Mr. Lincoln told this story about himself, "One day I
was drilling my men. We were marching across the fields
twenty abreast. There was a fence ahead. I could not for
the life of me, remember the command, for getting my com-
pany ench\dse, so I could get them through the gate, which was
very narrow. As we came near, I shouted, ' * Halt. This com-
pany is dismissed for two minutes, and will fall in again on
the other side of the fence. Break ranks." Mr. Lincoln re-
ferred to this command, as "A success which gave me more
pleasure than any I have had since."

In this connection, there is an interesting military order
in the files of the war department, from General Atkinson to
Colonel Taylor, and countersigned by Albert Sidney Johns-
ton, the famous southern general, as aid-de-camp.

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE

In 1821 what is known as "The Missouri Compromise
Laiv" was passed by Congress. This threw the people of Illi-
nois into a perfect maelstrom of debate and political jangle.
Many people of the south end of the state, had owned slaves
before Illinois was admitted into the Union, and they were
still in the possession of them. But under the law no new
slaves could be brought in. Missouri had gro^vn rich because
of slavery. The southern portion of our state wanted slavery.
The north did not. Politics was at fever heat all during the
election of 1824, But finally. Governor Edward Coles, the
anti-slaveiy candidate, was elected. Governor Coles had pre-
viously owned slaves, but freed them. This election deter-
mined the further status of the state on this question, and
saved Illinois for the Union, when secession's evil head arose.

Later, as an outcome of many bitter controversies, Elijah
P. Lovejoy, who published an anti-slavery paper in Alton, Il-
linois, was murdered by a mob. Lovejoy had previously pub-
lished his paper in St. Louis. But owing to his boldness in
advocating the freedom of the black people in 1836, his presses
were destroyed and his oflSce set on fire. It was then he moved
to Alton. Here he continued his fight, and his presses were
again destroyed. In a talk to the people, he said, "Now that I
am removed from the seat of slavery, I can publish a news-
paper without discussing Its policy', but it looks like cowardice

342

to flee from the place where slavery existed and come to a
place where it does not, to make the fight against it."

On the Fourth of July, he published this paragraph : "This
day reproaches us for our sloth and inactivity; it is the day
of our nation's birth; even as we write, crowds are hurrying
past our windows in eager anticipation, to listen to the decla-
ration that all men are created equal. The eloquent orator
denounced in manly indignation the attempt of England to
lay a yoke on the shoulders of our fathers. Alas, what bitter
mockery is this ? We assemble to thank God for our own lib-
erty, while our feet are on the necks of nearly 3,000,000 of our
fellow men. Not all the shouts of self-congratulations, can
dro\\ni their groans." This paragraph created great excite-
ment. The slavery advocates, being augmented by sympathiz-
ers from St. Louis, took his new press and type and threw
them in the Mississippi. Lovejoy declared, "I will start an-
other paper, regardless of the consequences. " The people of
the north stood solidly behind him. They seemed to think the
freedom of the black race depended upon his continuing to
publish his paper. The mob spirit was engendered and the
mob triumphed. Because as all mobs do, they worked secretly-
and in the dark. Again new presses and type were bought. A
group of his friends were always on guard over the new
presses. A mob attacked the warehouse and one of the Love-
joy party in self-protection fired and killed a member of the
mob. This inflamed the crowds who rushed for powder to blow
up the building. Ladders were raised to the roof for the pur-
pose of setting it on fire. The bells of the city were rung, and
a vast crowd assembled. A man mounted a ladder with a torch
to set fire to the building. Lovejoy stepped out to dislodge him
and was hit with five bullets fired from the guns of murderous
men concealed behind a lumber pile. Many were indicted for
leading this riot, but none were found guilty. Sixty years
after, an unusally fine monument was erected in Alton. The
state paid for half and half was raised by public subscrip-
tion. It was dedicated "In gratitude to Gocl and love of liber-
ty." The entire nation did honor to his memorj^^. The pre-
ceding recital shows what bitter feeling was engendered by
the slavery agitation.

Through the work of friends of the slaves, hundreds of
blacks were rescued and gained freedom in the North, through

343

the Liberty Line, or underground railway — nothing more
than hiding places for the Blacks.

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES

Congress, led by Stephen A. Douglas, had passed a law
which compelled all citizens to aid in the capture and return
of all run-away slaves. The North rebelled against this law.
They would not accept a law, which in itself was unconstitu-
tional. Lincoln was outspoken in denouncing this act of con-
gress, but Douglas kept up the fight in its favor, on the ground
of state right. He wanted the whole problem left to each
state to deal with as each state deemed advisable. The famous
Lincoln-Douglas Debates were no doubt the result of the great
publicity given the slavery issue by Lovejoy. Mr. Lincoln
and Mr. Douglas were both candidates for the Senate. Mr.
Lincoln challenged Douglas to a series of debates to be held
in various cities throughout the State. The arguments of
both sides were printed in daily newspapers all over the
United States. Douglas was nominated, but these debates
afterward made Mr. Lincoln president, and resulted in the
freeing of the slaves. Markers and monuments where these
famous debates took place have been erected in most of the
cities where they occurred.

Abraham Lincoln, our greatest President, was born
near Hodginsville, Ky., Februaiy 12, 1809. He was associated
mth Illinois nearly all his Hfe, and we claim him as our most
illustrious citizen. His parents were Thomas and Nancy
Hanks Lincoln, and he was a grand-nephew of the famous
pioneer, Daniel Boone. Most of his boyhood was spent in Li-
diana where he was famous as an athlete and stump speaker,
in the little town of Gentrj^ille. He removed to New Salem,
Illinois, where he studied law, clerked, sui*veyed, was the town
grocer and post-master. He later removed to Springfield and
through many celebrated law cases, his anti-slavery doctrine,
and wonderful personality, became famous. He was twice
elected President. The history of this wondrous man is too
well known to enter into details. We feel, however, it is in
keeping to present at this time one or two of his character-
istic sayings. Reasons which gave him the entire confidence,
reverence, and love of his countrymen. When General Shields
challenged him to fight a duel, he wrote: "I am wholly op-

344

posed to dueling, and will do anything to avoid it, that will
not degrade me in the estimation of myself and friends, but —
if degradation is the alternative, I shall fight." The duel
never took place. Before making a speech in the State con-
vention, he submitted this paragraph to friends: "A house
divided against its self cannot stand. I believe that this gov-
ernment cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free.
I do not expect that it will cease to be divided. Either the op-
ponents of slavery mil arrest the further spread of it, or its
advocates will push it forw^ard till it shall become lawful in
all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South."

One of his best friends said: "Why, Mr. Lincoln, it
will never do to make that speech. It is true, but the time has
not come to say it. It will defeat you, it will ruin your party. "

Lincoln replied: "The time has come when these senti-
ments should be uttered. If it is decreed that I should go
down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to
the truth — let me die in advocacy of what is just and right."
He afterward said: "If I had to draw my pen across my
record and erase my whole life — if I had one choice as to what
I should save from the wreck, it would be that speech." At
another time he ma,de the following declaration: "I am not
bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to
succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have. I
must stand with anybody who stands right, stand with him
while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong."
Lincoln's residence in Springfield is now owned by the State
and contains a splendid collection of Lincoln mementos.

We can scarcely look through all history and find a man
who has attained true greatness — a man who by his virtues
has moved the world — but you will find, as with Lincoln, the
great secret of his success lies in the fact that the vast majority
of people think right, and that they instantly respond to the
teachings of the man who is right. It must be remembered
that Judge Douglas was earnestly loyal to the Union. In a
speech at Springfield, copied all over the Country, he called
upon all his Democratic supporters to come out boldly and
fight in defense of the Union. Because of the above declara-
tion and his great character, Illinois, in the centennial year,
unveiled a new statue at Springfield of the little Giant,
one of the greatest men among many great men, in Illinois,

345

whose luster has shed effulgence upon the State that made
them great. Mr. Douglas was born April 23, 1813, at Bran-
don, Vennont; he removed to Jacksonville, Illinois. He
quickly gained a reputation and was sent to Congress, was
later elected to the United States Senate for four terms. He
was mentioned for the Presidency in 1850 and 1854, and ran
against Mr. Lincoln in 1860, but was defeated. He died in
Chicago, June 3, 1861, at the age of 43, shortly after Mr.
Lincoln's inauguration. It is remarkable that most of his
accomplishments and fame were gained before he was 37
years old. At that time he was perhaps the best known public
man in the country.

In 1820 the State Capital was moved from Kakaskia to
Vandalia which was the seat of the government until 1836,
then it was removed to Springfield. The people of Spring-
field contributed the ground for a new building. In a short time
agitation for a larger and more commodious building resulted
in a great contest for the capital from other cities, Peoria
making tremendous efforts to secure the prize. Springfield,
however, donated ten acres of land for a new building site and
paid $200,000 for the old capitol, and finally won the contest.
The present capitol building is one of the finest in the entire
country. Here the remains of President Lincoln lay in state
before liis burial.

THE CIVIL WAB

Following the trend of events in succession comes the
great Civil War, which nearly disrupted the Union. Mr. Lin-
coln was elected President by the new Republican party, and
took the oath of office on March 4th, 1861. In April, Fort
Sumpter, commanded by Major Anderson, the man who gave
Lincoln Ms commission as captain, was fired upon and finally
surrendered. But these shots rang around the world. The
people of the North rallied as one, and Illinois was no lag-
gard. Illinois furnished a greater number of volunteers in
proportion to her population, than any other State, and more
than her quota called for. The famous war Governor Richard
Yates was untiring in his zeal and patriotism.

Illinois undoubtedly presented the greatest soldier of the
War, General U. S. Grant. General Grant, also twice Presi-
dent of the U. 8., is one of the supreme men of Illinois, al-
though born at Mt. Pleasant, Ohio. His father early moved to

346

this State. Grant secured his appointment to West Point from
Illinois. He lived in Galena both before and after the war.
He was a resident of Galena when he was elected President.
His war history is too well known to require extended com-
ment. After the War he was the most popular and powerful
man in the country. President Johnson appointed Grant
secretary of war and in 1868 he was elected President. Grant
died at McGregor, near Saratoga, N. Y., July 23, 1885.

THE CHICAGO FIKE

The next event of importance was the great Chicago fire,
October 8th and 9th, 1871. A tablet marks the place where
Mother O'Leary's cow is said to have kicked over the lamp,
and started this tremendous fire disaster. The fiercely sweep-
ing and onrushing flames leaped over the south branch of
the river and across a large district previously burned. It
was thought that this would check the fire, but it swept on and
on through the business district like a tornado, jumped the
north branch of the river, and swept everything before it, un-
til it burned itself out in a cemetery which is now Lincoln Park.
The old Ogden residence protected by Washington Square,
was the only house left standing in the entire burned area.
Never in history were so many houses burned or so large an
area devastated; 20,000 buildings were destroyed and their
value was two hundred million dollars. One hundred thou-
sand people were Avithout homes and funds, but supplies, food,
clothing, money and sj^mpathy from nearly every town and
city in the United States were showered upon the stricken
people. With that undaunted courage and perseverance that
made Chicago what it is today, the people set about to build
a bigger and better city upon the grounds which were f ormerl.y
Indian plains.

THE world's fair

A few years later, in 1893, we have the marvelous ''Dream
City" on the shores of the Lake. The whole world met in
honest and friendly rivalry at the World's Fair. It would be
fitting indeed if the famous statue of the "Republic" by
Daniel Chester French which graced the Court of Honor on
the Fair Ground should be reproduced in enduring form on
the Centennial Building, Springfield, built to commemorate

347

the admission of the state. A replica of it also now stands
in Jackson Park, Chicago.

' ' Though rich Chicago was in buildings grand,
No eyes had e 'er beheld before the Fair,
Such wondrous marvels of architecture planned,
As pleased the sight, and lulled the senses there.
From marshy timbered lands, a city grew,
As if by magic, at a siren 's touch,
To rival in its transcendental view
The fairy homes of elf s and sprites and such. ' '

— From "Dream Windows" — By A. M. B.

But these were ephemeral, and Chicago and Illinois still
exist, both happy abodes of the thrifty, and mirroring pros-
perity all around.

THE DRAINAGE CANAL

The next great enterprise of interest to the entire state
and the nation, was the building of the Drainage Canal. WhOe,
primarily a Chicago project, it is destined as a water route
connecting the great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. The Legis-
lature has recently passed a measure authorizing the begin-
ning of work. Before many years, great steamers will be
transporting goods from Eastern cities and Atlantic ports
direct to the Gulf. The practicability of such a route was men-
tioned by Father Marquette and by LaSalle over two centuries
ago. Their dreams of a canal across the portage over which
they struggled with so much difficulty, is at last about to be
realized. At no distant day, big freighters vnW be carrying
goods from Buffalo and Cleveland, to St. Louis and New Or-
leans. The Panama canal will come into its own, and the people
of the whole country will receive a new impetus in trade and
prosperity.

CHANGES AND STATISTICS

The years from 1825 to 1860 saw wonderful changes and
growth in Illinois. The opening of the old Illinois and Michigan
Canal in 1848, the building of the Chicago and Galena Union
Railroad, first opened in 1848, and of the Illinois Central Rail-
way, finished in 1856, attracted thousands of settlers. From
40,000 population in 1818, the census figures showed over
425,000 in 1860. The first settlements were along the river
banks. In 1830 a sod plow was perfected by Oramel Clark, a

348

Connecticut blacksmith living in this state. After this in-
vention the richer Illinois valleys were occupied, and the in-
terior portions of the state rapidly built up. This plow has
resulted in making Illinois one of the richest farming states
in the Union, and it has contributed as much as the railroads
to its prosperity and wealth.

CHICAGO
FIRST SCHOOL IN CHICAGO

The first school in Chicago, stood on the present site of
the Tribune building, corner of Madison and Dearborn. It
would hardly be adequate for the city's present needs. At the
present time, Chicago, the metropohs of the State, and the
fourth city of the world in population, has over 2,800,000 in-
habitants. The entire state had 6,234,995, according to the
census of 1917, and it ranks as the third state in the Union.
The original town of Chicago occupied two and one-half miles.
The total area of Chicago at present is 199 square miles. It
has a frontage of twenty-six and one-half miles along the lake,
and it extends westward about twelve miles in its widest part.
Where LaSalle and early travelers could purchase whole
states for a few glass beads and trinkets, land in Chicago has
increased in value to fabulous sums.

Chicago has 2660 miles of streets and over 1600 miles are
paved. There are 6000 miles of sidewalks, and over 1500 miles
of sewers, and about 46,000 street lamps. The best park and
boulevard system probably to be found in the entire world
gives Chicago 2605 acres, which is being added to continually.
A fifty-mile drive over boulevards all the way and built up
and lined \ritli expensive buildings, nearly surrounds the city.
There were in 1918, 1150 churches and missions; 70 charitable
institutions, and many semi-charitable ; 88 hospitals, 30 large
hbraries, 308 schools; about 171 state, national and private
banks, and several hundred theatres, large and small. There
are at least five theatres in Chicago housed in buildings which
represent an investment of more than $1,000,000 each, and,
^viih ground values, some of them represent several million.
The rental paid for one theatre is $75,000 a year, under a ten
years' lease or $750,000 for the period. The lowest rental for
any large theatre in the loop district is $25,000 a year, and
others run to $60,000. There are 116 theatres devoted to

349

drama, musical comedy, vaudeville, burlesque or stock. There
are now 831 theatres in Chicago.

In the matter of hotels, Chicago is not behind any city in
the world except New York, and many are equal to the finest
in that city. We hold in great esteem the ' ' Sauganash Hotel, ' '
the first in Chicago, at the southeast corner of Lake and Mar-
ket streets, which was the center of Chicago's business life at
that time. The first dramatic perfoi*mance in Chicago was
presented here.

Chicago's marvelous growth, educational and otherwise,
is coincident with that of all parts of the state. They are all
endowed with, educational institutions of high rank; mth
libraries, fine public and private buildings, and monuments
and landmarks to the glory of the state and the honor of those
who have made the state illustrious.

LANDMARKS AND MONUMENTS

We now turn aside, or back as it were, to speak of some of
the earlier landmarks and forts and houses, most of which
have passed from existence, but some few of which are still
standing. There is still standing in Jackson Park, Chicago,
the oldest Court House in the Mississippi Valley, built in 1716
in Cahokia. It w^as removed to Chicago for the World's Fair.

Frink and Walker's Stage line at Lake and Dearborn
streets is reproduced in a picture herein.

Old settlers remember well the first draw-bridge built
across the Chicago River, in 1834, at Dearborn st. Many pic-
tures of this will be found in the early histories of the city
and State. Events of extreme importance to the entire State
were the opening of the old Illinois and Michigan Canal in
1848. And the Chicago and Galena railroad was also first
opened in the same year. The first depot built in Chicago was
located at Wells street and the river. These arteries of trade
and the completion of the Illinois Central railroad in 1856 at-
tracted thousands of settlers to Illinois.

The wigwam where President Lincoln was nominated in
1860, stood on the site of the old Sauganash Tavern, another
landmark, at the corner of Market and Lake streets. There are
many pictures of this extant. In 1849 occurred the great Chi-
cago Flood. Great damage was done and it is truly remarkable
that no such flood has been knowai in Chicago before or since

350

that time. It destroyed the bridges at Randolph and Clark
streets ; some 40 vessels, and much other property. It also
resulted in changing the course of the River, from Van Buren
street to its present mouth. The first capitol at Kaskaskia
was occupied from 1809 to 1818. The bricks were brought
from Pittsburgh by boat down the Ohio, and overland from
ShaAMieetown. It was known as the Pape House for nearly
sixty years after.

The same capitol afterward was partially undermined by
the rise of the Mississippi in 1881, but still stood as a ruin
for many years thereafter.

The house of Col. John Edgar, Kaskaskia, built in 1795,
was a famous historical old place. It was a splendid example
of the early architecture of Illinois, but has long since de-
cayed.

The first executive mansion of Illinois, occupied by
Governor Bond, first Governor of the State, is preserved in
many pictui'es. This also was long since destroyed.

A picture of the land office of Kaskaskia, as it was before
its destruction, has been preserved.

The Chicago Historical Society has a picture of an old
trunk known as the "Land Office Trunk." It was used for
transporting the records and valuable papers and deeds to
and from Washington.

There is also a picture of the ruins of Riley's Stone Mill,
built in 1795, the first in the west. It still stands where it was
erected verj" nearly two hundred years ago. Modern boilers
and machinery were installed, and it w^as in use until 1870.

The remains of the Parish House, Kaskaskia, built in the
early part of last century, stood for sometime after the flood
of 1881. This parish church was the third building erected on
these grounds, and contained the famous bell, exhibited at the
World's Fair, Chicago, where it rivaled the Liberty Bell. One
authority says it was the second bell cast in this country, the
Liberty Bell being the first. Another authority states it was
brought from New Roehelle, France, in 1742. It is ancient
enough, in either event, to claim our respect.

The Church of the Holy Family, which formerly stood at
Cahokia, St. Clair County. It was supposed to be erected in
1700, and early documents seem to prove this statement, and

351

it stood until 1904. Ruins of the old court house at Kaskas-
kia, abandoned because of the changing of the channel of the
Mississippi River. The bricks were taken from an old convent
which had fallen into decay. It was used as a school until
Kaskaskia was no more.

THE TRAGEDY OF A BUINED CITY

Kaskaskia in 1895 contained but three houses. It is
very strange but true that the first capitol of our great state
has been entirely washed away, and this tragedy of a ruined
city was scarcely mentioned in the press of that day.

The powder magazine of the great Fort Chartres, which
cost over $1,000,000, is now all that is left of what was the
most powerful fort in America, at the time it was built, in
1756. The remainder, as well as the most of the town of Kas-
kaskia, was swallowed up by the encroachments of the Mis-
sissippi.

The present site of Kaskaskia shows the river flowing east
of the island, where was formerly a town.

The house of Pierre Menard, the first lieutenant gov-
ernor of the state, was built in 1791, and still stands at Fort
Gage, 111., opposite Kaskaskia. Pierre Menard's great grand-
son still lives in Fort Gage. The Menard house was restored
and rebuilt a few years ago by Mr. Charles Lynn. It is oc-
cupied as a residence, and as the post office of Fort Gage.

An imposing monument for the early settlers of Kas-
kaskia and Fort Gage, partly paid for by the state and
partly by public subscription, now stands on the hill above
Fort Gage, 111. The remains of the early pioneer settlers were
removed here. It was erected in 1892.

John Marshall's House, Shawneetown, built about 1800,
another famous landmark. Here in 1813, was established the
first bank of Illinois. ShaAvaieetown was the only other place
in the State honored by a visit of General La Fayette. Ex-
traordinary entertainment and courtesy were shown him. In
this town Robert Ingersoll studied law, and here General
Logan was married.

Governor Chartres' Old Cabin, Dixon, one of the first
in the north part of the state, and Dixon's Ferry, Dixon,
where old John Dixon kept a tavern for many years, are rev-
erentlv remembered bv the old Pioneers.

352

Dixon afterwards built the Nachusa House, the oldest
hotel in Illinois, still occupied. It is also a well conducted and
veiy comfortable hotel.

The stone abutments are all that is left of the first rail-
road bridge across the Mississippi, at Rock Island. The first
train crossed in 1856. Galena has the honor of publishing the
oldest paper in Illinois. It was called the Galena Gazette and
it is still published.

John Kelly's home, Springfield, erected in 1819, was the
first house in Springfield.

The Historical Society of Chicago has aided in marking
the exact site of old Fort Dearborn, Chicago, with a tablet in
the wall of the building for years occupied by the Hoyt Whole-
sale Grocery, corner Michigan Ave. and South Water St.,
Chicago. This tablet is temporarily in the rooms of the His-
torical Society, but will be replaced on its original site as
soon as improvements now under way are finished.

Nearly all of the places of historical interest in Chicago
and throughout the state have been marked in some appro-
priate manner, through the interest of the Daughters of the
American Revolution, or various historical associations, de-
termined to foster patriotism, educate the young, and suitably
reward those early heroes, who have not lived in vain. It is
fitting that thej' should be so honored.

There is no more interesting reading to be found than the
details of the early voyages of the explorers, and the glories
of the pioneers. They thrill Avith romance, poetry, heroism and
perseverance. They fill many books. The student or individual
who cares to delve, mil find that time is not considered when
he picks up the wonderful story. In this brief talk, we have
barely touched upon the hardships and heroism of La Salle,
Tonti, and the great explorers. In later years, illustrious great
men of Illinois have thrilled the nation. We have only briefly
time to mention the courage of General Sheridan ; the zeal of
Peter Cartwright, the great pioneer preacher; the genius of
the great Robert Ingersoll. And we have but mentioned Gen-
eral Logan, another great Illinoisan, distinguished for his
brilliant record in the war, who was a native of this state. He
was born in Jackson County, 111., Feb. 9th, 1824. He fought
in the Mexican War ; served in Congress, and three terms in
the Senate, and was nominated for Vice President. He was

353

accorded great honor by the people of his state and country.
He died in Washington, D. C, Dec. 26th, 1886. A splendid
monument in his honor stands in the Lake Front Park, at the
foot of Eldredge Court, Chicago.

We must not forget the early pioneers. Men like John
Kinzie, Alexander Beaubien, Guerdon Hubbard, Dr. Alex-
ander Wolcott, John Wentworth, Archibald Clybourn, Judge
Dean Caton and Fernando Jones. Nor must we overlook
George Flower and Morris Birkbeck, and their English colony
who settled Edwards County ; the German Pioneers who aided
in settling St. Clair County, and the Smss emigrants who set-
tled Madison County; the Irish emigrants of Gallatin and
Hardin Counties, and the French Lead-Miners at Galena.

iVll these are worth more consideration than a brief arti-
cle of this nature can give. All have helped to make the state
and the nation great.

DANIEL POPE COOK

To Daniel Pope Cook for whom Cook County was named,
Chicago and Cook County owe their legal existence. It was
Cook who fathered the bill for the Illinois and Michigan
Canal. One of its provisions set aside every other to'wnship
in a strip across the state thirty miles wide, as state property,
to be used in paying for the canal. This caused Chicago to be
platted and laid out. He secured the passage of the bill in
the Legislature, and his fight for the new toAvn at the head of
the Lake endears him to us.

Illinois has a golden heritage, in more ways than one. Her
citizens have much to be proud of. In the recent World's
War crisis, caused by a maniacal kaiser, the Centennial Flag
of peace is waving side by side with the Eed, White and Blue,
which typify the achievements of Democracy.

As the Centennial Flag stands for the triumph of thrift
and energy, let us see to it that the flag of our country shall
be the signal of Liberty to the oppressed of Europe, and to
our o^\^l people. Let it not be lowered in Europe until the
German idea that "Might makes Right" has been banished
forever, and the beacon light of Liberty floods all the world.

354

THE WAR GOVEKNOES

We here briefly present some of the illustrious War Gov-
ernors of Illinois. First mention may be made of Hon. Au-
gustus C. French, Governor of Illinois during the Mexican
War, who promptly responded to the call of the President,
James K. Polk, and, like his successors, raised more than the
State's quota of troops. Governor Richard Yates, the Civil
War Governor, personally chartered a steamer to succor
wounded IlUnois soldiers and brought many of them back
to home and fireside, which made him exceedingly popular.
He was untiring in working for the Union.

History cannot forget Hon. John R. Tanner, Governor of
Illinois during the Spanish-American w^ar, who did all that
could be done for the glory and honor of the state.

IlUnois has gone over the top in subscriptions to all Lib-
erty Loans and Red Cross Subscriptions, and she has gone
over the top in furnishing her quota of loyal men to fight the
battle of Democracy, under the leadership of our recent
splendid and patriotic war Governor, Frank 0. Lowden, and
she did her full share to maintain, in the words of the im-
mortal Lincoln, that "A government of the people, for the
people and by the people, shall not perish from the earth. That
the thirteen stripes and forty-eight stars of our flag shall
forever be an emblem of Liberty to the oppressed of the
World."

*LIFE IN THE ARMY

By Cynthia J. Capeon

My wedding tour was typical of the life of an army of-
ficer's wife — which I became Thursday, June 27, 1867.

We were married at my father's in the morning, and a
few hours later said goodbye.

We expected to go to California when my husband Thad-
deus H. Capron, should receive orders to go with recruits
from Newport Barracks, Kentucky, to New York City.

He had failed to get leave of absence in May, to attend
his own wedding, but had taken advantage of a sick leave —
which he really needed — to be married in time to take his wife
with him to the Pacific Coast.

On 1867 there was an overland stage, patronized by min-
ers and other people who felt able to endure anything, even
an Indian attack.

The letters were seldom, until a few months later, sent
overland; they were generally marked "By steamer" for
though in some cases they might make better time by stage,
people generally preferred the more slow but sure way.

This Thursday afternoon we arrived in Chicago and stop-
ped at the Revere House, which was later swept away with
the rest of North Chicago in the great fire of 1871. The next
morning at seven o'clock we started eastward. After three
hours ride, my husband left me at Michigan City to go to
Newport, Ky. I remained in the same car, arriving in Detroit
at six o'clock. Went to the Russell House, and in the evening
took a sleeping car for Syracuse, N. Y., where I expected to
stay mth an aunt until there were more definite plans. Satur-
day morning was clear and beautiful, and I had a magnificent
view of Niagara Falls.

My husband writes home, "About 10 :30 A. M., Thursday,
the 11th inst., I escorted my little lady on board the Henry
Chauncey, and left her in the ladies' saloon until I had made

•The Civil War Diary of Thaddens H. Capron, ]86M865, is published in Journal III. State Hirt.
Society. Vol. 12. No. 3. Oct 1919.

MHS. C. J. CAPRON

356

the necessary arrangements for a good stateroom, which was
to be our home for the voyage to Aspinwall.

Other duties with the men called me away, and Sis had
to content herself until the steamer sailed at twelve o 'clock,
when I was assigned a very pleasant room in the upper cabin,
and we removed to it, and settled down with all the comforts
possible for the voyage.

Many of the passengers had friends at the wharf to bid
them adieu, and handkerchiefs were waved. Sis and I had no
friends there, but we thought of those at home, and looked
fomvard to some future day when we should again see them.
Jennie was seasick soon after we left New York. I have
made some very pleasant acquaintances."

From me to my sister, July 16th: "Yes, here I am on the
Carribbean Sea ! The water is smooth and it would be delight-
ful if it were not so ivarm.

"We passed Cuba this forenoon ; were in sight of it several
hours. I did not see any buildings except a light-house. There
are high hills or mountains all along the shore, covered with
trees.

This is a very nice ship for the ocean, though there are
finer ones on the Hudson River. The one I was on was called
a floating palace.

I am just becoming acquahited with the officers on duty
M-ith the troops. I find them very pleasant. Capt. Brownlow
is a son of Parson BroAxnilow. There is an Irish Heutenant
who is droll enough, and good company."

The fare from New York City to San Francisco was $300.
Of course an officer has his fare paid by the government, but
it does not pay any expense of families I believe. In change
of station, there was an allowance for baggage that did very
well for a bachelor. The officers paid for extra weight if the
transportation companies required it. They often gave passes
to the families, and although we had one of the best state-
rooms, there was nothing to pay for my three weeks voyage.

There were 500 soldiers on board, and five or six officers.
Maj. Capron was quartermaster and commissary officer. That
means that he issued rations to the soldiers and looked after
their comfort generally. This took most of the time during
the day, I thought.

357

We arrived at Aspinwall at six o'clock Friday morning.
When I looked out and saw the little bay, half encircled by the
shore, the buildings and foliage, different from anything I
had ever seen, it seemed like a fairy land. The natives soon
came in canoes around the steamer to sell cakes, fruits, and
liquors. I remained in the ship until a train was ready, a
soldier being on guard in front of my state-room.

From one of my letters : "I can easily imagine the un-
healthfulness of the climate which caused the death of so
many of the laborers who constructed the railroad. There
were stagnant pools and ponds all along the route, except a
short distance where it is mountainous. The streams are all
sluggish and muddy. There are many beautiful flowers, and
the vegetation is luxuriant. I saw coconut, and many tropical
plants, shrubs, and trees."

The railroad had been finished not very long before, for
a lady I became acquainted Tvith in California had crossed on
a mule, as all passengers did, and she had a severe illness,
knoAvn as Panama fever, after reaching San Francisco. We
heard it said that there were as many deaths of those who
made the railroad, as there were ties in the road.

I remember my surprise upon finding that the natives
Avho came into the cars to sell fruit, could not understand.
They looked so much like the negroes of our country that I
expected them to speak English. I bought an orange, prob-
ably the largest I ever saw.

From a letter of Major Capron: "Immediately upon
landing, guards were stationed, so that none of our men could
go ashore until the train was ready to transport us across the
isthmus, which was not until ten A. M. I was very busily en-
gaged in issuing rations of coffee, meat, etc., to last the men
until we should reach the other steamer, and have an oppor-
tunity to cook again.

Aspinwall is much smaller than I had expected to find it.
It did not present a very interesting appearance.

At ten we commenced transferring the men to the cars,
and soon w^ere ready to start. I did not take Jennie from the
steamer until the train was nearly ready, as I did not want to
run the risk of her taking the Panama fever any more than
was necessary.

358

A little before eleven we left Aspinwall in a special train for
Panama. The trip was a delightful one. We passed several
villages. The houses are made of slabs and poles, roofs of
sugar cane, leaves, etc. About three o'clock we arrived at
Panama. There we found a small steamer awaiting us, ready
to transfer the troops to the Montana, which was lying out at
anchor in the bay. In a short time we had the troops on board
with the exception of a few men who were on duty with the
baggage, and some who had succeeeded in getting away into
the to^vn. ' '

After the troops were attended to, Maj. Capron had
orders to wait for the next train which brought the baggage
and the passengers ; so we went to the Hotel de Grande, about
half a mile away.

From a letter of mine: "Panama is an old city, and has
many ruins, and ancient buildings. The hotel is opposite an
old cathedral which is said to contain many old relics and
curiosities. The older buildings are spotted with mold. Seeds
have lodged in the dust in the niches and have grown. The
streets are very narrow and mostly paved, I believe. The hotel
was a nice one, though there were no carpets on the floors.
There was a large court in the center with a piazza around
each story. I do not think it was more than two or three stories
in height. Our room opened in the court. Here and in the
cars anything that could harbor vermin was dispensed with.
Nothing was upholstered.

We went to the wharf when the little steamer was taking
the passengers to the Montana; and waited there under the
large shed, or covered wharf, till it should be our turn. A
squad of native soldiers paraded around Avith guns held so
carelessly that I was afraid of them."

The Montana was the counterpart of the Henry Chaun-
cey, but there was another captain, and this was his last trip
on the "Pacific Mail Steamship Line." There was an ac-
cident which I will tell about later. A steamer company can-
not afford to let the least carelessness go unnoticed, and
though this captain had served for many years, and had al-
ways been considered careful — so far as I know — he lost his
position.

I remember seeing a very large steamer in the bay that
had come around Cape Horn. The president of the Pacific

359

Mail had come on the Henry Chauncey vnth his wife, child,
and .servants, and he went on this boat which was awaiting
him, to China, to estabhsh a new line from that country to
ours.

AVe left Panama in the night, while sleeping, and our next
stopping place was Acapulco, Mexico. We arrived there
the morning of the 25th, and many of us went in small boats
to the town. Here the natives were dressed in brilliant colors,
and rowed out to us in boats, dotting the waters of the bay,
and making another picturesque scene, in combination with
the Mexican city, amid a variety of tropical growths, among
which were the sword plants. I do not know the proper name,
but it resembles the century plant except that the leaves are
sharp pointed, and stand up to a great height. I heard it
said that a horse might be impaled on one of these. An old
Spanish fort was the iirst object to attract us. It was not gar-
risoned, and was said to be one hundred years old. I was very
curious to know whether it had been occupied by the French
who had recently left Mexico, or part of it, but did not find
any one who spoke English, who could infonu me. The Ioavti
seemed not very large. The streets were narrow, and the ar-
ticles for sale were in front of the stores where the salesmen
sat — on the walk I believe.

A large part of the population had turned out to sell us
shells and other things they found market for when a steamer
came. I believe several ladies bought silk dresses, which were
much cheaper than in the United States.

The low sensitive plant was as plenty as grass here, near
the stream where we saw the women washing their clothes in
the running water.

We left about three o'clock on our northward journey. We
were often in sight of the mountainous coast, and sometimes
saw objects of interest in the ocean. Until a few days before
arriving at San Francisco the weather was very warm. The
captain said one evening that in the morning at a certain time
we would need shawls, and it was as he said. The weather was
cool after this, and the captain said it was an exceptionally
pleasant voyage. On account of the good weather the steamer
came near San Francisco, one day earlier than the shortest
time allowed for a trip, and the captain tried to keep the boat
out through the night so that he could go into the harbor the

360

next day, August 2. The fog was so dense that he lost his
bearings and went about nine miles beyond his destination.

I was awakened in the night by the shock of the vessel
running aground. I felt sure that this was the case, but
thought it best to wait before calling my husband who was
in the berth above. When I heard men talking outside, about
taking the small boats out of the davits, I thought it was time
to do so. He had heard so many times about my surmises
that he did not expect to find anything wrong. At one time
the ship had been higher on one side than the other for at
least twenty-four hours. I was very anxious about it but no
one else seemed to be. After awhile I succeeded in persuad-
ing my husband to go out and see what the trouble was.

When he came back he said the ship was aground, and
he thought I was pretty brave after seeing some of the women
so frightened. The pumps were kept going the rest of the
night, and when daylight came we could not see much better
than before. Finally the fog lifted and we saw that we were
very near the shore, and also that there were several fishing
sail boats near us. The captain had a man go on horseback
to San Francisco to have a steamer sent to us. When the
tide was higher, about ten o'clock, we got off after making
considerable effort.

The water not having come in faster than it could be
pumped out, we were carried safely to the Golden Gate and
arrived at the wharf about noon.

I shall never forget the Bay of San Francisco as we came
through the Golden Gate. The passengers were asked to
stand on the deck at the stern, so that the bow would rise
above the sand bars as we came through. It was the dry
season, and the ground in San Francisco was the color of
sand. The live oaks and other evergreen trees made a pleas-
ing contrast. The city was then scattered somewhat over the
hills and mountains. The city, the island of Alcatraz, Angel
Island, Goat Island, the straits, and bay made a most beauti-
ful scene.

I drove to the Occidental Hotel with a gentleman my
husband asked to be my escort while he remained with the
troops. He went ^vith the recruits to Angel Island, the re-
cruiting depot, but was allowed to spend part of the time
mth me at the hotel, where I remained ten days. There were

361

several army officers and other steamer acquaintances stop-
ping at the Occidental, so that I was not very lonely.

"Woodward's Gardens were something Hke Lincoln Park
of Chicago, but there was an art gallery, besides several
green-houses, etc. An admittance fee of twenty-five cents was
asked at the gate.

My nest move was to Alcatraz Island. This island is
the most picturesque feature of San Francisco Bay. It rises
up almost perpendicularly on all sides from the water. The
wagon road up from the wharf has a very steep ascent, al-
though it has been cut so that it can be climbed by the few
animals kept here. A small steamer made access to the city
comparatively easy for those who were allowed to go and
come, but as this was a prison for offenders of the army, a
small garrison was needed on account of the isolation.

The officers occupied the citadel, a large brick building
with openings in the thick walls, perhaps ten inches wide,
but as long as any mndow. These "windows were so narrow,
and the walls so thick that only a little could be seen from
them. The commanding officer -with his wife "kept house"
in a suite of rooms, and all the other officers messed together.
There was a bilhard hall in the second or third storj\

I was the only lady in the mess but I did not mind it.
This was an artillery post and the officers were all artillery
officers. Their uniform was blue mth red trimmings. The
commanding officer, Major Darling, married a Spanish lady
from Chile. She was very fond of flowers, and had room for
a very small flower garden which she had watered, and every-
thing grew luxuriantly, although it was so cold all the month
of August that people wore furs, and they did any time in the
summer. When my fire was not burning well in our fireplace,
I was uncomfortable in my room.

Outside in the garden the fuchsias climbed over the top
of a high fence. The scarlet geraniums almost as tall as one's
head were loaded with blossoms. The pinks were the finest
I had ever seen. Alcatraz is in an exposed place where the
winds swept through from the Golden Gate. It was not so
cold in the city on one side, or at Angel Island on the other.

No money but coin was used on the Pacific coast, and
prices were very high after the war. We bought furniture

362

for two rooms which was very plain, but "incidentals" had
by this time amounted to a considerable sum, and the green-
backs the army was paid with only brought seventy-two cents
on a dollar. This was our first "home."

I never saw the prison, but I went up to the top of the
lighthouse where the lamp was kept burning at night. There
was a fog bell and it was often necessary to warn vessels of
the danger thej' were in when the fogs shut us in, and when
tilings could be seen at all at these times, it was through a
mist which sometimes made our surroundings seem unreal, as
a ship and a lighthouse ^dthout sky or water or land.

Major Capron was sent up the coast with recniits while
I was here, and I was invited to take my meals at Major
Darling's while he was away. They were very kind to me,
and the time finally came when the one who had been sadly
missed returned. The eleven days of his absence had been
spent in embroidering some slippers for him, and thinking
about shipwrecks principally.

Our letters we did not expect to come from Illinois in
less than eighteen days. Of course that was overland. I
do not think the railroad was begun at this time, although
two years from that summer we went east, two weeks after
the first train had gone through, over the Central and Union
Pacific railroads.

About the first of September our quarters at Angel
Island were ready for us, and we went to the headquarters
of our own regiment, the 9th Infantiy. The colonel had been
a general of volunteers, and was now called General King.
Later, congress authorized officers of the regular army to
retain the titles given them in civil war times. General King
and Mrs. King and a little daughter occupied the commanding
officer's quarters. There was a double set of quarters be-
sides, for officers. There were barracks for men, a sutler's
store and residence, and a few storehouses for government
supplies. There never was a post without a guardhouse, I
presume, so there must have been one there. The hospital
and surgeon's quarters were over the hill and out of sight of
the post. Point Blunt is the name of the part of the island
farthest from Camp Reynolds, about two miles and a half
distant. The highest point of the island is in the center, and
ridges and valleys extend in all directions from that to the

363

sea. Without roads being cut, there was scarcely a place
where a wagon could move without danger, except on the
parade ground. There was a road around the side of the
hill to Point Blunt on the south side, and one about half way
there — to the hospital — on the north side. Camp Reynolds
was in a valley running doAAm to the western beach where
there was a wharf, and near that a flagstaff from which
floated the stars and stripes from reveille to retreat. There
were pyramids of cannon balls around the flag. The cannon
were on the heights just north and south of the little strip
of beach. The cemetery was up on the hill to the south of
our valley which hid the city of San Francisco from us.

Soon after my arrival the first military funeral I had
ever seen passed slowly to this cemeteiy, the regimental band
playing a funeral march. I had lost a brother in the war
three years before, and I thought of him, dying away from
home and friends, as this soldier had, and of his burial by
comrades.

The adjutant of the regiment was the only officer per-
manently located here besides the colonel. There was not a
company of the regiment at headquarters. They were in
various parts of California and Arizona, and one at Sitka.
Lieutenant Leonard Hay, the adjutant, was a brother of
Colonel John Hay, our minister to England. He being the
only bachelor officer, kept a mess that all officers temporarily
stationed here joined, paying their share of the expense. I
was the only lady in the mess. Sometimes there were only
one or two extra officers, and at other times there were more.

Troops were sent up and down the coast by steamer. All
those going to Arizona went part way by steamer, and when
awaiting the sailing of a steamer, officers generally came to
Angel Island. The pi'ivate soldiers also were here to await
transportation, or were recruits to be drilled. The buglers
practiced over the hills back of us, and the sound came back
from "over the hills and far awav, " and does in memorv
still.

We were very cordially welcomed by General and Mrs.
King. We were asked there to tea the day they made their
first call, and as they entertained many people from the city,
it was not a lonely place. General McDowell and Mrs. Mc-
Dowell came there, and Admiral Thacher, whose battleship.

364

the Pensacola, was in the harbor. The admiral took some of
us out in his row boat, in one end of which at least a dozen
sailors pulled the oars. They were in the naval uniform.
It was a very fine boat, richly carpeted, and an awning over-
head.

An oflBcer of the regiment. Lieutenant Griffith, was mar-
ried in San Francisco in church. We were invited, but we
could not afford the expense of staying at a hotel over night
as we should be obUged to do if we went. Our mess bill was
$60 a month in coin. I think the pay was about $113 a month
in greenbacks, and when it was turned to coin leaving $71.36,
there was not much for pleasure trips or clothing. I con-
sidered myself fortunate to get our washing done for $10 a
month in greenbacks, so after mess bill and washing bill were
paid, it left $14.16, to say nothing about the strikers five
dollars. Butter was 80 cents a pound, eggs 80 cents a dozen.
Milk was 10 cents a quart. We could not hire a girl for less
than $25 a month — all this in coin.

We rowed out in a small boat several times, and once
discovered a school of porpoises close to us, and started for
the shore immediately. Once we got around a point where
the current was too strong to get back, and we had to land on
the other side of the island and walk home.

One day when the bay was so rough it seemed as though
a small steamer would not be able to cross it, a new one built
by the government was to make its trial trip from Angel
Island to the city. The swell was so great that the little
steamer could not come near enough to put a plank on the
wharf. Major Capron thought it would suit his mood to take
the trip with the captain. He jumped on the boat when it
came near enough, and left me standing on the wharf. After
awhile, as the distance increased, the waves ran so high as
to hide the steamer from my view. General King came down
and when I told him that my husband had gone he said, "He
is foolhardy, foolhardy." He came back all right before
night. The captain was very much pleased with the new
steamer which after this made regular trips twice a day to
the posts in the bay and to the city.

The next winter it was nearly wrecked. It was on its
way to the city, and it was the first trip of a new captain.
He was talking with an army officer, and did not notice that

365

a British ship they were nearing was connected by a hawser
to a tug, and was being towed by it. They came in contact
with the rope and also the vessel. The hawser carried away
the pilot house, which the captain was in, and threw him back
seriously injuring him. The smoke stack and steam pipe
were carried away and there was great fear that the boiler
would explode before the passengers, thirty-five in number,
could be taken on board the ship. Lieutenant Rockefeller of
the 9th had his thigh broken, and Dr. Kinsman had his ankle
sprained.

One day I had gone to the city on the morning boat, and
returning was a httle too late, and missed the last one home.
"When I was hurrying to the wharf, there was a Chinaman
with an immense bundle on his back walking ahead of me,
and as I came nearer a man standing in an open front store,
gave him a push that sent him off of the walk into the street.
After I passed, I saw him meekly returning, and going on as
if nothing unusual had occurred. I took the Oakland or some
other ferry boat for San Leandro where a young lady with
whom I became acquainted on the voyage from the east re-
sided. When I retunied home the next morning I was sur-
prised to find that there was no perceptible excitement over
my being left among strangers in a large city.

We went horseback riding, and sometimes went out in the
ambulance. We hunted up some people we had brought a
letter of introduction to, and they visited us, and I went in
the city to visit them. We drove out to the Cliff House, and
down the beach to the south.

I took much pleasure in going to the little beach on the
south side of the island to gather seaweed. The hill cut me
off from everything but the view of the ocean, and beyond,
Alcatraz, San Francisco, and the mountains. There were
hundreds of sea gulls near the shore, and once I saw a flock
of pelicans flying northward. My husband was not assigned
to a company, and it was uncertain whether he would be soon,
or remain at headquarters. We intended to go to house-
keeping soon if we were to stay.

I wrote home October lOth : * * If we are going anywhere
this winter, I wish we could be sent before the rainy season
sets in. The most interesting events of the day are the ar-
rivals of the steamer morninsrs and afternoons. Those are

366

the times to see who go and who come, and how they dress —
that is all. I am just going to keep house and have something
to do as soon as we can bring it about. Major Capron re-
ceived orders to join his company (A) at Round Valley,
Mendocino Co., Cal., November 18. He went into the city to
purchase supplies to take to the isolated post we expected to
go to. There were some articles in the depot for commissary
stores in the city that were not sent out to small posts. These
goods, consisting mostly of eatables that would keep a long
time — canned goods, codfish, bacon, ham, blacking for shoes
and stoves, spices, sugar, etc., we could paj'' for in green-
backs, at the original price paid by the government, with no
additional charge, for transportation was all we had to pay.
Major Capron purchased crockery, carpets, and everything
to begin housekeeping.

"We left Angel Island after having been there nearly
three months. We went by steamer to Petaluma north of the
bay ; from there to Sonoma by stage, to Santa Rosa, Hcalds-
burg, Cloverdale, and Cahto. We went in a regular old
California stage Avith four horses and a professional driver.
He told us that just over the mountain to the east, there were
hot springs, but my husband being under orders to proceed
Avithout delay to his station, we did not visit Calistoga
Springs; neither did we visit Yosemite Valley as some of
the steamer acquaintances did. Those days we heard more of
the Yosemite, but nothing of the Yellowstone Park.

We crossed the Russian River, noted for its fine scenery.
The driver told us of a place where it would seem that there
was an end to the road, with nothing but the sky ahead. Wlien
we reached it the road turned and w^as like manj^ another
hard place in life — the way opened when we arrived there
but not before.

From Cahto to Camp Wright we were obliged to go on
muleback. The distance was twenty-five miles. We went
over two mountain ridges where the weather seemed very
chilly this December day. In the valley between, it was un-
comfoi'tably warm. Eel river, which was on three sides of
Round Valley, ran through this deep valley. It was a moun-
tain stream and very rapid. There was a detachment of
soldiers there to attend the ferry boat. It was a flat boat, and
was guided by a paddle. The saddles and bridles were taken

367

off of the mules and put in the boat, and then the animals
were driven into the water. They swam across, but it seemed
a hard struggle. Then we got into the boat and shot out into
the middle of the stream going do'wn somewhat, and here the
man -with the paddle began work in earnest to make a landing
before it was too late. If we were taken too far down, the
banks were too steep to make a landing, and there were
dangerous rapids not far away.

We were told bear stories as we went down the eastern
side of the last mountain, and finally we had a glimpse of the
flag miles away at Camp Wright.

It was dark when we arrived, but we met a hospitable
welcome from Lieutenant and Mrs. Griffith, with whom we
lived until our goods arrived three months later from Fort
Bragg on the coast seventy miles away, to which point they
had been sent by water.

Major Jordan, the captain of company A was in San
Francisco on recruiting service.

My husband writes December 24 : " It is midwinter and
it seems here in the valley Hke a spring morning ; birds sing-
ing, grass gromng, and all nature joyous after the long rain.
Soon after my arrival at the post I was appointed quarter-
master, commissary, and adjutant, and it is part of my duty
to make improvements. I am setting out a strawberry bed,
and in the spring will set out currant, gooseberry, and rasp-
berry bushes. J. Ross Brown calls this the most beautiful
valley in the world. It is about six miles in length, and five
in width.

It has a population of about 150 whites, besides those of
the post, and about 2,000 Indians on the reservation. They
are very peaceable, however, no trouble having been had
with them for years. Mrs. Griffith, Jennie, and I took a ride
the other day in our spring wagon, down to the reservation,
about one and one-half miles from the camp. They are very
industrious for Indians. They cultivate a large farm of
several thousand acres, and very well too. I wish you could]
see them preparing their favorite dish — a soup made from '
acorn meal and angleworms. They make the meal by pound-
ing the acorns until they are as fine as flour. Then the meal
and angleworms are put in a kettle to cook. Their kettle is
a hole in the wet sand, made by working a stick around until

<tA;

■--o

/^ri:-

^'e-^-

368

they get the sides quite hard. While one is doing this, an-
other has built a fire with boughs and sticks upon which they
pile a number of stones. When they become hot, they put
water in the kettle, throw the stones in and heat it until it is
the right temperature, when they take them out, and stir in
the meal, etc. I presume you will think I am telUng a good
story about making soup in kettles made in the sand, and
may doubt it as I did, but I have seen it done myself."

The surgeon and his wife lived at the south end of the
line of officers' quarters. The next was the commanding of-
ficer's cottage, one story and six rooms. This was built of
brick made near the post. Next was our log house, one story
high, and six rooms, one of which was the adjutant's office.
There was a bath room besides. The surgeon's quarters were
very much like ours. On the north side of the parade ground
were the company's barracks and the hospital. There was a
quartermaster and commissary building, and the guardhouse
on the west, and in the center the flag. Nothing on the south.
The highest range of the Coast Mountains was east of us,
and its highest peak was named Yolo Bolo. Major Jordan
had sent to this mountain one 4th of July, and had enough
snow brought to make ice cream, yet during the summer of
1868, for a long time_ the mercury went up to a hundred or
more in the shade in the middle of nearly every day, 108
degrees the highest, and this in our valley below Yolo Bolo.
There was a wagon road around this mountain out of the
valley towards Sacramento, but it was hardly ever used by
the troops. There were high mountains west and south of us
also.

It often rained for a week or ten days the winter of
1867-1868. The mountain streams would rise suddenly, so
that they could not be forded, and mails were very irregular.
One mail was lost. One letter sent February 23 did not reach
its destination until April 6.

I write May 31, 1868: "Lieutenant Griffith received a
note from Major Jordan last night saying that he had just
heard accidentally, that Major General Halleck and staff were
to start for Camp Wright in a few days on an inspecting tour.
Just think of us two families having the senior Major General
and five or six staff officers to entertain for several days. Of
course the general will stay with the commanding officer, and

369

we cannot possibly accommodate more than two. They never
give any notice of coming on their inspection tours, and we
are very fortunate to have heard about it. ' '

July 27 I wrote to my mother about our little boy just a
month old.

August 3 I Avrite : ' ' Since General Halleck was here we
have heard from three different persons that he was much
pleased with things at this post. The doctor's son in San
Francisco writes to his father that the General told him that
he never visited a camp where everything was done that could
be done, more than it is here."

My letters these days were mostly about "the boy." I
say August 27: "I do not think there ever tvas another such
a baby, or expect there ever will be one." I write October 5
of the Griffith 's boy a week and a half old.

Captain Fairfield was the Indian agent. I bought a
basket made by an Indian for one dollar. It would hold
water. They used such baskets for dishes. They kept many
baskets and other things for their big burning dance that they
had t^vice a year. They danced and howled around a fire,
and as they went threw things into the fire, even the clothes
they had on. These were the Con-cows. The Ukiahs, Pitt
Rivers, and Wylachers, did not do so. These tribes were all
on this reservation, and were called Digger Indians.

There were two doctors at Camp Wright while we were
there ; Dr. Kinsman, who left soon after we came, and a con-
tract surgeon whose name I have forgotten.

Major Jordan came in November, 1868, with Mrs. Jordan
and their two little girls. We found them very pleasant peo-
ple. The Griffiths lived vnth them. Mrs. Griffith was a sister
of Major Jordan.

News came that our regiment, the 9th Infantry, would be
sent east to take the place of the 12th Infantry.

I write May 16, 1869: "The company to relieve us
camped about eight miles from here last night, and we expect
them this forenoon."

We left Camp Wright May 25, and reached San Francisco
June 2. Left the 7th, stayed at Cheyenne June 12. Sunday
the 13th started for Omaha, arriving there the next morning.

From Omaha the companies were sent to different posts,
and Fort Sedgwick, Colorado Territory, was our next station.

THE DIARY OF SALOME PADDOCK ENOS

Introduction By Louisa I. Enos

In 1812 Gaius Paddock sold Ms home in Woodstock,
Vermont, expecting to take Ms family west to try their for-
tunes in the new country. But the War of 1812 broke out
before they got started, and there were rumors of Indian
uprisings in the West. So it was thought best not to make
the journey then. There was no vacant house in the little
village (there was a house shortage even in those days), so
the family was obliged to rent a vacant store building and
they lived there until they really made their start for the
West in September, 1815.

Salome Paddock, the third daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
Gaius Paddock, was married to Pascal P. Enos on the 4th day
of September and she and her husband started mth her
family on their journey to the West. The Paddock family
consisted of the father and mother, two sons and six daugh-
ters. The oldest daughter, Mrs. Jane Eichmond, did not come
%\ith them, but a few years later joined them in Illinois.

Salome Paddock Enos kept a diary of their route West.
Unfortunately it is very brief, only the names of the towns
they passed through, the places they stopped for the night,
and the distance travelled each day. Probably she was too
tired to write very much.

After reaching St. Louis, Mr. and Mrs. Enos went on to
St. Charles. In 1817 they moved to St. Louis and in 1821 to
Madison Co., 111., where Mr. Enos had bought land. In 1823
he was appointed Receiver of Public Moneys in the land office
then estabhshed at what was called the Springfield District ;
Mr. Enos arrived with his family September, 1823. Pascal
P. Enos died April 29, 1832, and Salome Paddock Enos,
October 23, 1877.

371

ITIKERABY DIAKY OF SAX,OME PADDOCK ENOS

Wife of Pascal P. Enos and daughter of Gains Paddock, kept

on the journey of the family from Vermont to

St. Louis, Mo., 1815-1816.

Left Woodstock, Vt. Sept. 3, 1815 (Sept. 4 is the correct
date) commenced our journey toward the west traveled 11
mils slept at Mr. Hascals Barnard.

Tusday weather bad took leave of our hospitable friends
and traveled 18 mils put up at Fullers in Stockbridge Pitts-
field.

Wensday weather still rainy crossed the green mountains
through Parkerstown road very bad slept at Read in Rutland
13 mis.

Thursday wether fine crossed Otter creek passed through
the tow7is of Castleton Poultney Granville the first town in
the State of New York put up at Hopkins in Hebron 30 miles.

Friday weather fair but windy traveled 28 miles through
Salem slept at Days in Cambridge.

Saturday crossed the river Hosock (Hoosac) traveled
the towns of Lansingburge Troy crossed the Hudson by ferry
Albany put up at Russels in Bethelehem 33 mis.

Sunday weather very warm traveled through Queman
(Coeymans) Baltimore Hockhocking Athens put up at Bots-
fords in ScatskiU 31.

Monday weather insupportably warm crossed ScatsMll
river passed through Sargeetias (Saugerties) put up at Rat-
cliff in Kingston 24 miles from ScatskiU.

Tusday weather excessively warm traveled through
Springton Tuttleton crossed the rivers Rosenolle and WalUrill
put up at MuUeus in Shawangunk 26 miles.

Wensday Sept. 13 weather cooler passed the towns of
Montgomery (crossed the River WaUkill) Goshen and Florida
slept at Randolphs in Warwick 28.

Thursday left Warwick traveled through Vernon (the
first town in New Jersey) Hamburg slept at Philips in Newton
28 miles.

•Pascal P. Enoe and Salome Paddock were married on the day the family left for the West.
The party consisted of Cains Paddock and his family. An article on Mr. Paddock, his journey and
his settlement in Illinois, by Gains Paddock, a grandson of the pioneer, is published in the Journal
of the Illinois State Historical Society for April, 1920, Volume XIII.

372

Fryday Left Newton passed the towns of Johnsonburge
Hope and put up at Lomeson in Oxford a wrecked inn miser-
aWe beyond description 27 miles.

Saturday weather fine left the bed-bug tavern at an early
hour took breakfast at Drums in Geenwich crossed the River
Delaware by bridge of the most beautiful construction I ever
saw (cost 8500 d) traveled the toAvns of Easton Bethlehem
slept at Weitters in Hanover 26.

Sunday weather rainy passed the day at Weitters till 4
P M left that friendly family crossed the River Ralah
(Lehigh) over an elegant bridge (cost 2200 d) into Allenton
a beautiful village built principally of stone slept at Domey's
had a fury for a land-Lady.

Monday Sept. 18 left the abode of the infernal traveled
the to%vn of Kutztown put up at Schwartz in Reading slept in
a Dutch bed for the first time 32 m.

Tusday weather fine crossed the River Schuylkill traveled
the to^^^ls of Liiikeihe Womolsdorff (Womelsdorf) slept at
Yong's in Myerstown 24 ms.

Wensday weather good left Myerstown passed the towns
of Lebanon Millerstown Palmyra forded Sweetaran River
(Swatara River) in Hammelstown (Hummelstown) put up at
Willmots in Harrisburge.

Thursday weather fine left Harrisburge crossed the Sus-
quehannah by ferry one mile in width traveled the towns of
Mechanicksburghs CarUsle slept at a Dutch inn in Wallnut
Bottom 24 ms.

Friday weather rainy travel to Shippingburgh (Ship-
pensburg) put up at Porters 12 miles.

Saturday weather still bad P M weather fair left Ship-
pensburghs traveled 4 miles broak a waggon put up at Wun-
derlich in Southhampton.

Sunday Sept. 24 weather fine drove 6 miles traveled on
foot over the three Broters (Brothers?) at the foot of last
broke one waggon found entertainment after walking two ms
at Dubbs'in DubUn 18.

Monday weather verry fine left Dubbs traveled 15 miles
to the top of Sideling Hill slept at Willsons.

Tusday weather good left Willsons drove four miles over-
turned a waggon in desending the mountain and broke it two

373

hours to repare crossed the Juniatta River put up at Tots in
Bloody Run the inn good.

"Wennsday A. M. pleasant P. M. i-ainy traveled 15 mils
put up at Mullens at the foot of Dry Ridge and Bufow Creek.

Thursday weather pleasant left Mullens traveled 15 ms
over dry Ridge to the foot of the Allegany mountains crossed
it put up at Kimbels a cross Dutch Inn 23 ms.

Fryday weather still pleasant left Kimbles traveled 17
miles to the foot of Laurel Hill 4 miles to the assended two
miles put up at 23.

Saturday weather fine left the Dutch hut traveled two
miles to the foot of the mountains assended chestnut Ridge
five miles over passed Mount Pleasant put up at Conrads
three miles beyond the to^vn 23 miles.

Sunday Oct. 1 left Conrads traveled 14 miles of the worst
rode that was ever passed by mortals put up at Crimins an
excelant inn.

Monday traveled Northamp, Mechanicksburg and put up
at McCulloughs in Pittsburg 20 miles.

Tusday spent the day in Pittsburg visited the Glass fac-
toiy in company "with Mr. Taylor, Mrs. Enos and two Gent of
the town Mr. Deming Mr. Collier and Sisters walked to the
Hill that overlooked the tovni thought it dirty and irregular
built returned read Rookbey (Rokeby) till evening attend
church.

Wennesday weather fine left Pittsburg 5 o 'clock P. M. on
board our boat sailed five miles put up at Sargents in Pine
Town five miles.

Thursday morning foggy sailed from Sargents passed
Middletown slept at a priviat house in Logto\vn 15 miles.

Friday weather rainy passed Beavertown and Big Vever
river which the High Ohio receives at that place put up at
Forsters in Georgetown 23.

Saturday still rainy passed the to^vn of Possom slept at
little Hut on the bank on Virginia side 14 miles.

Sunday Oct. 8 weather continues rainy sailed 17 mils to
Charlestown slept at Greathous passed the town of Stubens-
vill (Steubenville) on the Ohio shore.

374

Monday weather pleasant left Charlestown sailed 27 mils
passed the town of Wheling (Wheeling) "Warren slept at
Purdys on Virginia side.

Tusday weather f aire but windy so much so that we were
obliged to lye by half of the day sailed 18 miles slept at
Russels on Virginia bank.

Wennesday pleasant sailed 34 miles slept at Greens in
W. Newport.

Thursday weather warm sailed sixteen miles to Mai-ietta
found it to be a small to\\ai in the forks of the Ohio and
Muskingum slept at Cook in Belpre 28.

Friday very fine left Cooks at an early hour passed that
celebrated Island of Blanerhasets (Blennerhassett) one mile
in length slept at a little hut on the bank or rather staid for
sleep we had none sailed 33 miles.

Saturday pleasant runn forty miles slept at Harreses
found them pleasant hospitable people rare qualifications for
the inhabitants of this countiy.

Sunday Oct. 15 weather fair runn 34 miles passed Point
Pleasant (where the Kenawha empts itself into the Ohio it is
a river of considerable magnitude 400 yards wide at its
mouth) Galhopolis a town of considerable note slept at a
private house.

Monday weather rainy runn 36 miles passed Great sandy
river which is the division line between Virginia and Ken-
tucky slept at .

Tusday pleasant and warm run 36 ms passed Ports-
mouth a pleasant town on the Ohio slept at P Timin's in
Elixandria situated in the forks of the Ohio and Scioto a
miserable town Our friend Noble very sick.

Wensday weather fair Mr. Noble better runn 30 miles
passed Louisvill on the Kentucky shore salt works at that
place slept at Lockhearts in Washington.

Thursday verry warm run 36 miles passed Georgetown
stoped a short time at limestone a handsom to^vn on the Ken-
tucky bank met with our friend Collier here slept at Mitchels
in Charlestown.

Friday rainy and wind runn 28 miles passed Augusta a
beautiful Httle town on the Kentucky bank slept at Flocks in

375

Nevilletown this night our fellow passengers (Mr, Taylor
and Noble) had their trunks broken open and robed of watch
and money to a considerable amount the theft supposed to be
commited by one Anderson a discharged soldier who worked
his passage down the river on board one boat.

Saturday Oct. 20th still rainy spent the day in Neville in
hopes of detecting the theif but to no effect. Slept at the

house of a merchant by the name of found

them to be an agreeable friendly family rair qualifications for
the inhabitants of the bank of the Ohio.

Sunday 21 morning foggy run 14 miles to Columbia.

Monday 22 fine run 6 miles to

Journal continued from Oct. 23d, 1815, to Sept. 14th, 1816.
embarked on board one boat for Shawneytown, fellow passen-
gers Dr. Cool Mr. Poland and left the city of

Cincinnati at 11 o'clock (with little regret after a residence of
almost a year) passed the Great Miami river the boundary
line between Ohio State and Indiana territory the town of
lawrenceburgh on the Indiana bank found much difficulty in
landing on account of the rapidity of the stream which was at
last effected by the assistance of the inhabitants a little
below Grape island 12.

Sunday 15th weather rainy river still rising runn 12 miles
put in at Big Lick creek took our friend Nicoll on board at
this place.

Monday 16th weather fine put of early runn 11 miles to
Fredericksburgh stoped their for oars obtained them runn to
Vevv (Vevay) 12 miles had a visit from esquire Holton and
left Dr. Cool their.

Tusday 17 morning foggy day pleasant passed the Swits
settlement Kentucky river and the town of Fort Wilham at
its mouth also the town of Madison a flurishing hansom settle-
ment distance 40.

Wensday 18th weather fine runn 26 miles to the falls
passed much fine hansom country on either side of the Ohio
could not pass the falls for the want of pilots walked in the
evening to the harbor saw a beautiful steem-boat, and harbor
filled with barges and keels had a sleepless night.

376

Friday 20th (Thursday 19th) weather pleasant procured
a pilot crossed the falls at ten oclock, run to Salt River 25
miles night rainy.

Friday 20th morning rainy runn 9 miles and landed untill
the return of Father who had gone back in quest of the dog
while waiting our party went out a sporting and brought in
two fine turkeys one of which we roasted for dinner 11 oclock
Father returned put out agane run 29 mils runn into spring
creek Indiana shore.

Saturday 21 weath cloudy and unpleasant, passed much
hilly uneven country, the appearance of the inhabitance, sav-
age in extrem put in at a small creek, distance 52 miles night
rainy.

Sunday 22 morning rainy accompaneyed with thunder,
afternoon pleasant country more level passed a barge that
was assending the river saw but few settlements distance
unknown put in for the night on Indiana shore.

Monday 23 morning foggy pleasant day -winds high in the
afternoon, passed the hanging rock called Lady Washington
saw three keels assending the river, cave on the banks of the
river landed on a willdernes shore Indiana distance 35.

Tuesday 24th passed much handsome country but few
settlements Green river on the left a large beautyfull streem,
landed again in the wilderness on Kentucky shore 50 miles.

Wensnesday 25th day fine winds high which retarded our
progress left Mr. Hopkins at Hendersonvill who had accom-
panyed us from Louisvill, put in at an excellent harbor a new
town Mount Vernonp

Thursday 26th fair high Avinds was passed by a fine large
Steemboat was surprised to see with what velocity she stemed
the current passed the Wabash a beautiful river on the right
P. M. reached the much \visht for port of Shawneetown found
it to be a wreched sunken place steemboat desending the river
which surpassed the former in beauty and grandeur.

Friday 27th weather fair exchanged our boat for a horse
got our baggage on board our waggons, at 4 oclock commenced
our land journey for St. Louis traveled 6 miles over a bad
road put up at a log cabin.

Saturday 28th weather good, roads intolerably bad passed
the U. S. Saline salt works and Saline creek put up at Browns

377

accomadations bad, cross Landlady and exorbitant price dis-
tance 15 mi.

Sunday 29th pleasant broke our waggon put up at Jor-
dens found them to be kind hospitable people just to reverse
to our night before entertainment distance 18 miles.

Monday 30th cloudy roads better traveled over the py-
raees found pleasant beyond my expectations forded big
muddy put up at a miserable cabin had an Idiot for landlady
and a savage for a landlord 17 miles.

Tuesday October 1 thretened with rain, roads fine,
crossed little muddy, took breakfast at Jacksons, traveled to
Flacks distance 26 miles had a dutch landlady with evry ac-
complishment that is attached to that class of beings.

Wensday 2 morning rainy left Clarks at an early hour
traveled 18 miles to breakfast roads very fine traveled two
miles further left the Cascaska road for the St. Louis which
proved to be a bad exchange put up at Pattersons distance
32 miles.

Thursday 3 left pattersons crossed the Kaskaska river
traveled ten miles to breakfast crossed a twellve mile pryrarie
partly on fire put up at Cottens distance 30.

Thursday 4th weather good, left Cottens traveled to
French villiage five miles from St. Louis wherry P. M. spent
in following French directions to no effect put up at Mac-
Kneels.

Friday 5th

Charges paid at warehouse $2.62>4

ShawTieetown Sept. 27th 1816.

Deposited by Pascal P. Enos "with David Api^irson Co.
the following articles to be shipped to Moses Scott of St. Louis

3 Beadsteads, two large Trunks

1 Bureau 2 dos Windsor chairs

1 Rocking chair, two Tables one

small chest & trunk.

PETER CARTWRIGHT

SOME PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER
CARTWRIGHT

By William Epler

When a child I heard so much of the courage and daring
of the Rev. Peter Cartwright, I became to have fears of the
man. This feeling remained "w^ith me, in a modified degree,
as I grew older, until one hot Sunday afternoon in early
August, 1870, when the mistaken impression was removed, un-
der the following circumstances :

The doctor came to hold a quarterly conference at old Zion
Church, near Little Indian, Cass County, Illinois, he being the
Presiding Elder of the district. The business of the Confer-
ence was attended to on Saturday, as was the custom. On the
Sunday following, services were held at 11 o'clock a. m. and in
the afternoon also. At both services sermons by the Presiding
Elder were expected. The day, as stated above, was hot. The
good doctor preached a sermon, at the eleven o'clock hour.
Went to my father's (John Epler) for dinner. When the time
came to go back to the church for the afternoon service, he re-
marked to my father, ' ' The weather is so warm, I do not think
I should be required to go down to the church to preach
another sermon this afternoon. I must return home this eve-
ning (18 miles). There will be a good preacher there, he can
talk to the people. I shall lie here on the grass, in the shade of
one of these trees, until the sun further declines, then return
home." I heard this decision and I determined at once to be
one of the party to lie under the tree on the grass, as it will
be a good chance to hear the doctor talk and learn something
of his career from first hands.

Everyone left the premises for the afternoon service, ex-
cept the doctor, my father and myself. The place of rest chosen
was on the bluegrass in the inviting shade of a hard maple.
The conversation, as might have been expected, was con-
cerning the early settlement of the county, early times, gen-
erally, the deep snow, etc. The doctor was in his 80 's,
my father 75. I, who was a silent listener, soon began to have
a real liking for the old pioneer. I noticed his bland manner.

379

his kindly expressions and absence of harsh criticism. My
childish distrust vanished, felt free to put in a word, occasion-
ally, and did. I remarked to him, "Doctor, in books I have
read of experiences you had with Gen. Andrew Jackson at the
Hermitage in Tennessee. The story ran about as follows:
You had an appointment in the neighborhood of the Hermit-
age, where you regularly preached. On one occasion, you were
preaching, the General for the first time attended sei-vice that
day, coming in a little late, when a brother, seated behind,
twitched the skirt of your coat, exclaiming in a whisper, 'be
careful. Gen. Jackson has just stepped in.' You announced,
in a voice so that all could hear, *Who cares for Gen. Jackson,
he will go to hell, like any other man, if he does not repent
of his sins.' This produced consternation, all thought, at the
first opportunity the General would surely cane you, if not
worse, but it did not turn out in that way. The first oppor-
tunity the General had, he cordially greeted you, took you by
the hand, commended your manner of presenting Bible truths,
adding, 'if I had ten thousand men like you, I could drive the
British off this continent,' and invited you to the Hermitage
for dinner." The doctor replied: "There is no truth in the
story, as found in print. It is true, I had a preaching place in
the neighborhood of the Hermitage. The General, occasionally,
came to our meetings, and I had been in\T.ted to the Hermit-
age, we were always on friendly terms." "Doctor, here is
another. Tradition, says Mike Fink, was the terror and fistic
autocrat in an early day from the falls of the Ohio to New Or-
leans, among flatboat men. His custom was, before forming
new acquaintances with strangers, to challenge them for a
combat, a real combat, no pretentious affair. His object was to
ascertain how worthy they would be as companions. On first
meeting you, the usual challenge followed. You promptly ac-
cepted, sailed into him, giving a good thrashing. Ever after
you were good friends." At this he laughed. I think his reply
was, he never saw Mr. Fink, but had often heard of him. ]\ty
father who had been on the rivers as flatboat man, corro-
borated that part of the story, as to Mike's personality and
to his domineering tendencies.

The doctor listened to these book stories, in the most pa-
tient good humor, convincing me further of his mild disposi-
tion. But don't think for a moment, the doctor was wholly
made up of mildness and amiabihty, as the following incident

380

would seem to contradict : In early August, 1860, the writer
attended a camp meeting at Black Oak Grove, near Ebenezer
Church, three or four miles northwest from Jacksonville, on
the Sabbath day. Dr. Cartwright preached the morning ser-
mon, to be followed in the afternoon by the Rev. Peter Akers.
Dr. Akers was a profound and deeply learned man. When
he was to preach in the afternoon, it was necessary for him to
begin early, so he could finish before a late hour.

The horn to assemble the people was promptly blown. As
this camp meeting w^as near Jacksonville, it was to be ex-
pected many of the town's people would be present, especially
of the younger class, and so it was. At the blowing of the horn
many of these young people gathered around the outside row
of seats in standing positions, quiet and respectful enough,
excepting many of the young gentlemen did not remove their
hats, and not a few were smoking cigars, never thinking they
were violating camp meeting propriety. Dr. Cartwright arose,
looked around. He began his remarks by stating the want of
reverence of many when attending Divine service, especially
at camp meetings. With a sweep of his arm, and an eye of no
mild type, he exclaimed: "I mean those young people, stand-
ing around with hats on, smoking cigars ; if their hearts were
as soft as their heads, such irreverence and such impudent
conduct would be foreign to their sense of propriety. ' ' Need-
less to say, in an instant every hat was doffed and every cigar
under foot, and soon the standing circle had vanished.

This camp meeting incident was ten years previous to the
hot Sunday afternoon under the maple tree. The ten inter-
vening years may have had a mellowing effect, doubtless had.
The facts are, Peter Cartwright was equal to any emergency
during the active period of his life, and he knew how to deal
with it. He resisted wrong wherever he found it, sometimes
with a mailed fist (so tradition says), sometimes with a soft
glove, as the case might have been. The following bits of early
history were inherited from my parents: It about 1825, as
they relate, the Sangamo country, out in Illinois, was attract-
ing much attention in Clark county, Indiana. The praise of
that country was without limit by those who had "spied out
the land," its beautiful groves, its expansive fertile prairies,
its Avild fruits, in fact every feature and charm required to
make a new country attractive, belonged to it. Here let me

381

add, I am a native of the Sangamo country, boni and raised
in it, and can, mthout prejudice, indorse every praise it
received.

My parents related this. About the year 1826 the an-
nual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church was held
in Charlestown, Clark Co., Ind. The Conference District was
vast in extent, embracing, as it did, Indiana, Ilhnois, parts of
Kentucky and Ohio. Peter Cartwright represented the San-
gamo country. After the business of the conference was trans-
acted, he was requested by the people to address them. Taking
for his theme, "The Sangamo Country," he obligingly con-
sented. In his address he gave an account of its advantages
and its disadvantages, its landscape beauties, its fertile prai-
ries, its wild animals and wild fruits, all in all, a truthful and
charming description of the country. Among other things, he
said: "Brick houses do not grow on trees in that country,
but there were two nice large brick houses within a mile of his
log cabin home." Two brothers, by the name of Broadwell,
came into the country, made a settlement, laid out a town site,
and built the two houses. They doubtless came from Ken-
tucky, as they named their embryo city ' ' Claysville. ' '

One of these houses was intended for a public inn, two
stories high, double galleries on north and south sides. For
years it was the wonder of the Sangamo country. This pioneer
inn is still standing, though in a neglected and ruined condi-
tion, galleries long since gone, and decay everywhere visible.
The writer remembers, when a boy, in the 40 's and early 50 's,
this inn was headquarters for the Ohio and Pennsylvania cat-
tle buyers. These cattle buyers were there most of each mnter,
buying up the fatted cattle of the country, of which there were
many, driving them, the next spring and summer, to the far
eastern markets, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City and
Boston. The other brick house was a nice dwelling, was so con-
sidered then, and would be now. It was removed some years
ago by the B. & 0. Railroad Company, being in the way when
the company was making betterments along its line. "Clays-
ville" is, or was, located one mile east of the beautiful little
city of Pleasant Plains.

This address of Eev. Cartwright resulted in a number of
good families removing from Clark Co., Indiana, to the San-
gamo country. All came just before the deep snow, or one year
afterwards. Among the number may be found the names of

382

Crum, Beggs, Epler, Hopkins, Eobinson of Sugar Grove,
Eobinson of Hebron, Morgan Co., Garner and the Cosner
brothers, perhaps others, all settling west of and within a few
miles of the Cartwright home. All became peiTuanent and
successful farmers, all raised large and respectable families.
Their coming aided greatly in bringing prosperity to this
sparsely settled land, and that prosperitj^ continues, for where
can be found a better citizenship of more prosperous com-
munities than can be found within few hours' horseback ride
from the old Cartwright home ?

Of all the people in this Cartwright hegira, the writer
knows of but one now living, that one is my cousin, Mrs. Sarah
Cunningham, of Cass County, now nearly 96 years old, born,
Hopkins.

Before proceeding further, I will state Dr. Cartwright
erected for himself, before or soon after the deep snow, a very
comfortable two story brick house, located about one mile
northwest of Pleasant Plains, in which he passed the evening
of his Ufe.

The activities of the Doctor in the interest of the old fash-
ioned camp meetings were ceaseless and eifective. He early
saw their value to the pioneer settlers and to the country's
development. First settlements were ' ' few and far between, ' '
making the church worship of a later day quite impossible.
At these camp meetings the pioneers assembled, bringing
their households, with camp equipage, "for man and beast,"
usually for a week's stay, frequently longer, coming long dis-
tances, frequently as much as a day's travel.

No argument is necessary to estabhsh the helpfulness of
these meetings during pioneer days. Not only were ethical
questions considered, but business of an everyday character,
the various phases of agriculture, as to the best methods, all
being new and untried, doubtless shared equal attention (on
the side of course), each profiting by experiences of others.

"Black Oak Grove," at Ebenezer, about four miles north-
west of Jacksonville, was one of the prominent camp grounds,
in the Doctor's district and, it may be said, a favorite of the
Reverend Akers. "The Eobinson Camp Ground," at Hebron,
Morgan Co., about seven miles northeast from Jacksonville,
was another prominent place. "The Gamer Camp Ground,"
located on Little Panther Creek, Cass County, about six miles

383

east of Virginia, was a camp in early days. Still another, and
the most modern, the "Holmes Camp Ground," about four
miles northeast from Virginia, in Cass County. The Holmes
succeeded the Garner. A Cumberland Presbyterian church
camp meeting place, widely known, maintained for many years,
was located on Rock Creek, Sangamon County. Besides the
camp meetings above mentioned, the Baptist association con-
ducted meetings, of much the same character in various parts
of the country. One was annually held at the head of Indian
Creek, near the home of the Rev. William Crow. Rev. William
Crow was a very early settler, coming in the 20 's, before the
deep snow, a man possessing many sterling qualities and
highly regarded.

We had not thought, at the beginning of these recollec-
tions of elaborating on camp meetings, but we found, to write
of the work of Peter Cartwright, leaving camp meetings out
would be like writing up the war record of George Washington
leaving out "Valley Forge and the Crossing of the Del-
aware." So, some account of them had to be written.

It may not be considered amiss, to mention in these recol-
lections the peaceful, though sensational death of his aged
consort who survived him. She was attending an experience
meeting in the nearby Bethel Church. All old fashioned
Methodists know what an experience meeting is, or was;
almost obsolete now. She gave her religious experience in a
very touching manner, concluding by saying, ' ' I am just wait-
ing for the Chariot," took her seat, leaning her head forward
on the back of the seat in front. Rev. Harding Wallace was in
charge of the meeting. When the congregation was dismissed,
he noticed she did not move, going up to her, he was unable to
get response. She was dead. He announced to the waiting
people, "the Chariot has come."

The camp meetings served their purpose well and have
long since gone into disuse, being no longer necessary, and
indications too plainly point to the fact, that with them are
going the country churches, the auto, the village church, the
pealing organ are closing their doors. Is this changing condi-
tion for the best?

The fame of Peter Cartwright is assured, as the years
pass he is becoming more widely known. His unselfish work
in planting the Cross in so many distant wilds, is receiving

384

more and more appreciation. Story and song will magnify his
work, as the muses delight in flattering the great, or nearly
great at least. He will be long remembered in the Sangamo
country.

Of the old John Epler estate, the land part has been kept
in the highest state of efficiency, but the old house, the house
built in 1837-38, the first built with saw mill limiber in that
section, is abandoned to bats and decay. The brood has gone,
its spacious apartments, once filled -with joy and love, are be-
ing used for the shelter and keep of agricultural implements.
Tenants and employed help, not particularly interested in its
upkeep, occupied it for years. Its imposing outside chimneys
have disappeared. It stands as solidly on its foundation as
when first erected.

The yard in which it is located is overgrown by weeds,
but that maple tree still stands, though with its fading foliage,
testifying to the surrounding neglect.

During all the years since, the writer seldom passed that
tree mthout calling to mind what was done and said in its
generous shade during that hot Sunday afternoon in August,
1870.

*HISTORY OF THE SELMA METHODIST
EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Article Written in 1909, By A. V. Pierson.

It is rumored that the Methodist Episcopal Church at
Selma is to be closed and that regular preaching services will
be discontinued indefinitely. It is hoped that these reports
may prove to be unfounded and that some way may be de-
vised by which public sei'vices may be continued in that
historic church, for it was at the Fatton settlement that the
first Methodist class and the second Methodist church was
organized in McLean County.

John Pattou, the first white man to settle in the present
confines of Lexington to^vnship, came to the Mackinaw about
the first of March, 1829. His arrival with his large family
at the Kickapoo town, situated about half a mile east of where
Pleasant Hill now stands, caused quite a commotion among
the dusky citizens of the village, and after their council it
was somewhat doubtful whether Patton would be allowed to
wear his scalp lock where it would do him the most good, or
be deprived of it altogether. But Patton, by his mechanical
skill so won their favor that the Indians not only reversed
their verdict of death, but also gave him two of their pole
cabins, in which he lived until he could build a house of his
own.

John Patton was a devout Methodist, as were several
members of his family. His son-in-law, Aaron Foster, one
of the most influential men in the new settlement, was also of
the same faith; and it was in this first house erected by a
white man in Lexington township that the first Methodist
class of eight members was organized with Joseph Brumhead
as leader. This was in 1830, and was, I believe, the first
Methodist class organized in our county.

In this same house in 1838 the first Methodist church out-
side of Bloomington and the second church of that denomina-
tion in our county was organized of which Mrs. Mary A.
Patton, who has but recently passed to her reward was the
last surviving charter member. The Fattons, Aaron Foster

•The church building was moved to the cemetery nearby where it is now used as a chapel for
funeral senrices.

386

and Isaac Smalley were largely instrumental in the organ-
ization of the church and its upbuilding. This church, planted
in the wilderness as it were, grew in members and influence,
and the congregation had so increased in numbers that it
was difficult to find a house that would acconmiodate it.

The meetings for public worship were always held at the
home of John Patton, not only because it was here the church
was organized, but also because of the better facilities for
the accommodation of the congregation, for Patton had added
to his original log cabin until his home consisted of a house
of he^\^l logs twenty by fifty-two feet, one and a half stories
high, with a covered porch, ten feet A\dde, running the full
length of the house on the south. It was the most commodi-
ous dwelling in all the settlement.

After the laying out of Pleasant Hill by Mr. Smalley in
1840 the society determined to build a house of worship in
the newly laid out towni. Everything being ready the house
and parsonage were built on lots donated for that purpose;
this was in 1845, or '46 — authorities differ as to which year it
was. The house was built by Mr. White, of Bloomington, and
stood on the ground where the present Methodist Episcopal
Church building now stands, facing east on what then was
knowm as Winchester Street. The frame was of hewn tim-
bers, which were of most generous proportions ; the cross ties
on which the purhn posts rested were 8 by 10 inches, and for
fear they would not be strong enough, about four feet from
the base of the purlin posts, a six by six inch piece was mor-
tised into these posts, and these pieces were connected with
the 8 by 10 cross ties by two 4 by 6 braces. Thus did our
fathers build.

The siding and shingles were of black walnut, as were
also the doors and window frames. The siding was sawed at
the Haner mill on the Mackinaw, which was located west of
Pleasant Hill on the fann now owned by Mr. Charles Becker.
The seats were of dressed linn or basswood; underneath the
seats, and extending almost to the floor was a thin board of
the same material as the seats. Why it was put there I am
unable to tell, but I know that it was as resonant as a bass
drum, and when some luckless youngster's heels would come
in forcible contact with it, as was frequently the case, the
effect was quite startling. Not only did everyone in the
church know of it, but it appeared as though the noise could

387

be heard about three blocks outside. The offending youngster
generally suffered a total collapse.

Like all Methodist churches this one had a mourner's
bench. Those were the days of the non-scouring plow, which,
in my judgment, offered more and greater inducements
to profanity and general backsliding than any other imple-
ment ever devised by man. No matter how uncertain a man's
position might be on the doctrine of total depravity, let him
wrestle with one of those plows when it was fully possessed
to do evil, and at the end of the struggle he would be a
firm believer in the total depravity of all things animate and
inanimate and then would be willing to add a few things
extra for good measure. Because of these conditions and the
fervid and effective preaching of those days, this mourner's
bench was crowded at every revival meeting.

The pulpit was of walnut, with steps leading up to it and
was enclosed by a walnut railing with two gates, having
wooden hinges, for entrance to the pulpit. This railing with
its cumiing workmanship, was the wonder and admiration of
all the small boys, until for some fancied or real transgres-
sion during services some of us youngsters were confined
within this sacred enclosure to insure our good behavior.
The cure was very effective. But after that experience we
always wrote "Ichabod" over that particular handiwork.

As was the custom of that day the men and women were
seated separately, and any man who disregarded this rule by
seating himself on the woman's side of the house was invari-
ably asked to explain matters to some of the officers of the
church. During the Civil war a number of our soldier dead
were buried from the doors of this old church, Joseph C.
Parker, Company K, Eighth Illinois Infantry, being the first
soldier whose fmieral was held in the church. The Rev. G. B.
Snedaker, an able and patriotic minister, was in charge of the
Selma circuit at that time, and was always in great demand
on such occasions.

The old church has witnessed many stirring revivals, the
altar being crowded with seekers and many were added to the
church of such as shall be saved. During this period the
church had some strong men among its laymen. Among them
were the Fattens, Aaron Foster, Isaac Smalley, John Hous-
ton, Patrick Hopkins, Andrew Smith and Absalom Enoch.

388

The old building being too small to accommodate the
growing congregation, it was determined to build a new house.
The present structure was built during the war, possibly in
the year 1863. The new building was much larger in every
way than the old one, and was built by Mr. Timothy Roberts,
of Lexington. At this time the church entered an era of
great prosperity, Selma charge being one of the strongest in
the conference, and enjoyed the ministrations of some strong
men. A result of this was, that some of the greatest and
most notable revivals in the history of the church occurred
during this period. Those which occurred during the pastor-
ates of the noted preachers Lowe Day, Frank Smith and
John Rodgers were especially notable.

During the pastorate of the Rev. Underwood the church
was wonderfully agitated over the question of instrumental
music. This was the first time in the history of the church
that this matter became serious. Up to this time the only
instrument allowed was the tuning fork, and the attempt to
place an organ in the church met with most strenuous opposi-
tion, and it took time and the most skillful diplomacy before
the matter was peaceably adjusted and the organ permitted
to remain.

Among those who were prominent in the later years of
the church's hfe I will name Henry McCracken, David Mc-
Cracken and George H. McCracken, father, son and grandson,
three generations, all of them prominent in the work of the
church ; C. W. Matheny, Wilham Bratton, Thomas E. Scrim-
ger, David Parkhill, William Berryman, John B. Crumb, Isaac
Windle, Crawford Bailey, D. T. Douglass, Moses Cochran,
Thomas Cohagan and William Crumbaker.

Of the ladies I will mention Mrs. Julia Scrimger, Mrs.
Amanda McCracken, Mrs. Nancy Bratton and Mrs. Joseph
Enoch. There have gone from the membership of the church
into the ministry: George E. Scrimger, Marion V. Crum-
baker, Frank Forman, Joseph A. Smith and Thomas B.
Adams and George H. McCracken.

For more than seventy years this church has been a
faithful witness and has stood for all that is best, and the
Lord has blessed it most wonderfully in the years that have
gone, and it will be a great misfortune to the community to
have the doors of this historic church closed.

DEATH OF MISS MARY COLES, 1834-1920, THE

DAUGHTER OF EDWARD COLES, SECOND

GOVERNOR OF ILLINOIS.

By W. T. Nobton
A Link With the Past Severed.

Miss Mary Coles, daughter of Edward Coles, second Gov-
ernor of Illinois, died at her home in Philadelphia on the 27th
of October, at the venerable age of 86 years. It may seem
strange to some that a daughter of a man who was Governor
of our State nearly a hundred years ago should have lived
almost to the present day. It is accounted for in this way:
Edward Coles during the thirteen years of his residence in
Illinois was a bachelor. He left the State in 1832 or 1833,
permanently, and made his home in Philadelphia, where he
married Miss Sally Logan Roberts. He was then 47 years of
age. Three children were born of this union, one daughter
and two sous. The younger son was visiting his kinsmen in
Virginia in 1861, at the time the Civil War broke out and in
the mistaken enthusiasm of youth joined the Confederate
army, to the great grief of his father, and was killed at the
battle of Roanoke. The older son, Edward Coles, Jr., while a
summer visitor at Bar Harbor, Maine, a few years ago, was
killed in a runaway accident. He left two daughters who are
residents of Philadelphia. After his removal from Illinois,
Governor Coles made his home in Philadelphia during the re-
mainder of his life. He died there in 1868 at the advanced age
of 82. He lived to see the principles of liberty, for which he sac-
riiiced so much, triumphant over the land. He is famous in our
State history as the man who saved Illinois during his admini-
stration from becoming a slave State. The late Hon. E. B.
Washburne, in his "Sketch of Edward Coles," relates the
events of his remarkable career, in detail, and as this volume
is found in the State Historical Library, and, in fact, in almost
eveiy public library in the State, I will not repeat the story of
his chivalric and philanthropic career. The son of a Virginia
planter, of distinguished Revolutionary ancestry, he inherited
from his father's estate a retinue of 25 slaves and a thousand
acres of land. He was early in life impressed with the sin and

390

curse of slavery and determined never to own or traffic in
human beings. Under the laws of his State he could not free
the slaves he inherited and would not sell them. There only re-
mained the recourse to move to a free State and give them
their liberty. He made a prospecting tour in the West and
decided to locate in Madison County, 111. Eeturning to Vir-
ginia, he made his arrangements for the migration. After vex-
atious delays he bade farewell to his kindred and friends, and
started on his long journey. On the way down the Ohio with liis
slaves in flatboats he gave them all their liberty. But they
refused to leave him and followed his fortunes to Illinois.
Locating in Madison county, he purchased lands in what is
now Pin Oak township and gave each head of family 160 acres
of land and provided, otherwise, for the remainder. In 1822
he was elected Governor and at once aroused the hostility of
the pro-slavery element by advocating in his inaugural ad-
dross to the Legislature the repeal of the infamous "Black
Laws" of the State. The members of the Legislature retali-
ated by passing a resolution submitting to the people the
question of calling a convention to revise the constitution to
admit slavery. The campaign which followed was the bitterest
in the annals of the State, but through the heroic and unremit-
ting labors of the Governor and his associates resulted in the
triumph of the anti-slavery party and a guarantee that Illinois
would always remain a free State. The fame of Edward Coles
centers in the fact that he consecrated Illinois to freedom.

Miss Mary Coles, the subject of this sketch, was born in
Philadelphia in 1834 and that city remained her home during
her long useful life. She resembled her father in her strong
convictions and fearlessness in holding them. Her devotion
to her Master, to her chui'ch, and her love for souls was con-
spicuous. She was wonderfully alive to new methods and
the needs of the new era. Her life was devoted to religion
and philanthropy. During the later years of her life she
was afflicted "with blindness, but she rose above the handicaps
of this affliction and never ceased her efforts for the good of
others to which she had consecrated her life.

She did much more than deaconess work in the diocese
of Pennsylvania. She founded two boarding houses for work-
ing girls in Philadelphia in addition to her many other bene-
volent works. In her devotion to others she emulated and

391

duplicated the life-work of her father. Her good works live
after her. For instance, in her will she left the generous sum
of $145,000 for missionaiy work among Indians and Negroes.
A relative writes: "No one could enumerate all her deeds
of kindness and of love or speak too highly of her generosity. "
She passed away very peacefully, on the date named above,
and is at rest in Woodlands cemetery, Philadelphia, beside
her illustrious father. From the "Church News of the Diocese
of Pennsylvania ' ' I take this tribute, written by Miss Florence
F. Caldwell, a member of her Bible class :

"At a special meeting of the Tuesday Missionary Bible
class the following minute was passed:

Miss Coles passed from death into life and from darkness
into light, on the morning of Oct. 27, 1920, in the 86th year of
lier life. Of her devoted family life, of her many warm friend-
ships, of her boundless hospitality, it is not ours to speak, nor
of that inner consecrated life known only to herself and her
God. But the Tuesday Missionary class wishes to express its
deep gratitude for her influence upon its members during the
47 years that she was its teacher and devoted friend.

Miss Coles' distinguishing characteristics were single-
ness of purpose, absolute sincerity, and a passionate love for
the souls of men. Her greatest desire for her class was that
they shall have their hearts filled with "a personal love for a
personal Christ."

She strove to give her pupils not only a deeper knowledge
of the Bible, which she knew so well, but also by faithful,
constant repetition to so regulate their daily lives by prayer,
by reading of the Bible and by the practice of the homely vir-
tues of punctuality, faithfulness and responsibility, that they
should influence the lives of those around them. How rich
a harvest has been reaped from her precepts and her example !

And she opened before her class the wide world of mis-
sions, in which her own interest was so unfaiUng and so in-
tense. Her knowledge was no superficial thing, but entered
into every detail of the field at home and abroad. Not only
by her generous benefactions but for her personal kindness,
she was known to the missionaries far and wide. Hospitals,
schools, missions, all the organized life of the church, claimed
her interest, and her burning desire was that her class should
feel the same devotion and sympathy. She used every means

392

in her power to accomplish this end, with what success is
knoAVTi to many a mission station at home and abroad. In
teaching missions her precept was : 'Every man has a right to
know that Christ has come. '

But beyond all this was the influence of her consistent
life, her personal interest in the members of her class, and
her ^vise and tender sympathy for each and every one, and also
her 'rejoicing with those who did rejoice.' These are the mem-
ories that will last to the end of life.

In darkness and in silence the later years of her life were
spent. With what fortitude, faith and courage she bore these
trials all who knew her can bear witness. She loved to choose
a text for her class — may we not choose one for her: "The
path of the just is as the shining light which shineth more
and more unto the perfect day. ' '

SOME THINGS I DID IN MY 88TH YEAR,

By Chakles E. Cox*

Started in November on a trip from the Atlantic to the
Pacific — a 4,000 mile journey.

Spent the ^\inter on the F. A. Vanderlip 16,000 acre Palos
Verdas Ranch. With me were my daughter, Mrs. Waldo P.
Adams, my grandson, John Mann Vanderlip, his nurse and a
maid.

We lived in the middle of three thousand acres of peas,
beans, tomatoes and cucumbers. You could drive seven miles
through this field of vegetables. They begin to plant in Decem-
ber, beginning with peas, then beans, tomatoes and cucumbers.

Besides 3,000 acres of vegetables, there are 8,000 acres
of barley.

The ranch has fourteen miles of ocean front; it lies be-
tween San Pedro and Redondo, and is opposite the Catalina
Islands.

We had a very completely equipped bungalow, surrounded
with all kinds of flowers and flowering shrubs. It is on a
high elevation, giving a magnificent view of the ocean and the
CataUna Islands.

About a mile from the house is Portuguese Bend, where
there had been a whaling station, now a very popular place
for picnics, where we had many "with Los Angeles people.

I, -with my little grandson, planted a Httle garden, bord-
ered -with flowers. We planted peas, beans, lettuce, potatoes
carrots and corn; all were ready for use by the middle of
April, except the corn, which was in silk when w^e left in
May for our return trip from the Pacific to the Atlantic, mak-
ing eight thousand miles travel.

The most interesting and exciting event was to witness a
sham battle by the Pacific Naval Fleet stationed at San Pedro.
Admiral Rodman had planned the most extensive battle ever

^Charles Epperson Cox, bom in Montgomery County, Indiana. Sept. 28, 1833, came with parents to
Illinois, 1837. Colonel Cox was prominent in business and political circles in Illinois for many years.
In 1861 he was auditor in the Provost Marshal's office in Springfield, later was active and inlluential in
securing congressional action for improvement of Mississijipi valley rivers and harbors.

393

394

held on the Pacific. His fleet comprised 7 large warships and
numerous destroyers, submarines, transports, aeroplanes, and
hydroplanes.

The fleet started at 9 A. M. A fleet of destroyers pre-
ceded the battleships, towing targets quite a distance behind
to represent the enemy, a few camouflage ships making a
smoke screen to conceal the movements of the battle ships.
When 20 miles out to sea the enemy was sighted six miles
away. When the battle began, each ship had captive balloons
some five hundred feet high. Aeroplanes circling over the
enemy would wigwag the position to the man in the balloon,
and he would telephone to the gunners. There were seven bat-
tleships, all mounted with large guns. When the battle started,
all fired at once, the large guns and then smaller ones; the
firing kept up eight minutes. In that time $180,000 worth of
ammunition was fired. It was a most thrilling sight to wit-
ness the wonderful display of fireworks.

It was my good fortune to be a guest of Captain Willard,
conunanding the "New Mexico," Admiral Rodman's flag
ship. This is the largest ship in the navy.

Manned with 1700 seamen, armed with six 14-inch guns
3 forward and 3 aft — with 12 five inch guns — 6 at each end.
The large guns firing 1,400 pound shells, are mounted on steel-
turrets 14 inches thick. I stood by these turrets while they
fired. The concussion was terrific; we all had our ears filled
with cotton. It was a wonderful experience to me. As I said,
the "New Mexico" is the largest ship in the navy and is run
by electricity. I believe it takes 50 barrels of oil a day to gen-
erate sufficient power to run the ship and operate the guns.

During our stay at the ranch, we motored over 1,000
miles.

In June I went with the whole Vanderlip family with
two cars on a motor trip of about 500 miles, up through the
Berkshire Hills. We touched Connecticut, Massachusetts and
Vermont.

After the Vanderlips sailed for Europe, my daughter,
Mrs. Clover Henry, her daughter, the younger two of the
Vanderlip children and their nurse, in the big Pierce-Arrow
touring car, motored up into New Hampshire where Frank A.,
Jr., was in camp. We stayed there a few days and then went
to Scarborough, Maine, where we left the children and nurse.

395

Clover and I then motored up to Augusta, Maine, and
spent a couple of days with my nephew. Dr. A. 0. Thomas,
who is state superintendent of schools.

We then started home down the coast, all the way from
Augusta to New York, stopping at Boston and Providence.
In all we motored 1,300 miles. We had delightful weather
most of the time. It was a great pleasure to go through the
historic places in all of the New England States. My daughter
was a delightful companion, on account of her knowledge of
the country.

I am now in my 89th year, and am as well physically as
I was at 80 when I passed examination for insurance, I have
an assessment policy. Being in California, I did not receive
my assessment notice. When I got back I asked for re-exami-
nation. After a good deal of parley, they sent their doctor,
who, after a thorough examination, said that I had passed as
good an examination as a man of 30. Upon receiving his re-
port, they wrote me that my condition was Al, and I was re-
instated.

EARLY JUVENILE TEMPERANCE SOCIETY,
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS.*

Constitution.

Art. I. This Society shall be called the Sangamon County
Juvenile Temperance Society.

Art. II. Any person may become a member by signing the
pledge of total abstinence from ardent spirit.

Art. III. The Officers' of the Society shall consist of a
President, Vice President and Secretary.

Art. IV. It shall be the duty of the President to preside
at its meetings to maintain order and he may call a meeting
whenever he thinks best.

Art. V. The Vice President shall perform these duties
whenever the President is absent.

Art. VI. The Secretary shall keep a list of the names of
the Society, record its transactions in a book for the purpose.

Art. VII. The Officers shall be chosen by the members by
ballot.

Art. VIII. Any member of the Soc. capable may be ap-
pointed to deliver and address at some meeting of the Society.

Pledge.
I, beheving that the drink of ardent spirits is unnecessary
and injurious and that the evils of Intemperance can never be
prevented while its use is continued, do promise that I will
not, except as a medicine, use ardent spirits in any way.

Members.

M. Clark John P. McKibbon

E. G. Phelps G. H. Bergen

S. Loyd F. E. Smith

Eobert Lath^^m W. H. Bennet

Isaac A. Hawley W. B. Bennet

•Original copy presented to Illinois Stale Historical Library by Miss Louise I Enos. Date not
fiiven. It must have been between 1835 and 1845. Many of the persons mentioned became prominent
citizens of Springfield, 111.

397

James H. Matheny

F. Dicas
J. Meeker

T. H. Bergen
W. Jayne

G. I. Bergen
John Moore
William Dicky
J. W. Smith '
Z. A. Enos

I. B. Phelps
V. P. Richmond
C. P. Slater
J. S. Stafford
John C. Lamb

W. W. Taylor
A. G. Hemdon
P. P. Enos
W. L. Todd
Elliot Hemdon
Charles Webster
C. W. Matheny
Julia M. Jayne
Elizabeth Todd
Martha Enos*
Jane A. Stone
Susan A. Phelps
Mary Ann Elian
Adaline EUdn
Lucy E. Clark

EDITORIALS

JOURNAL OF
THE ILLINOIS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Published Quarterly by the Society at Springfield, Illinois.
JESSIE PALMER WEBER, EDITOR.

Associate Editors:

George W. Smith Andrew Russel

H. W. Clendenin Edward C. Page

Applications for membership in the Society may be sent to the Secretary of the

Society, Mrs. Jessie Palmer Weber, Springfield, Illinois.

Membership Fee, One Dollar — Paid Annually. Life Membership, $25.00

Vol. XIII OCTOBER, 1920 No. 3

CHARLES F. GUNTHER COLLECTION.

The important collection of historical material of the
late Charles F. Gunther of Chicago has been acquired by the
Chicago Historical Society.

Mr. Gunther spent a great deal of money and devoted
much time to building up this collection. He was a shrewd
business man, and he bought his collection through business
methods. He began in a small way, and of course his knowl-
edge increased as he became famihar Tvith the objects offered
him by dealers and private iiidividuals. As time passed his
reputation as a dealer became well known, and he purchased
manuscripts, pictures of all kinds, oil and water color por-
traits, engravings, prints and photographs, various articles
connected with the lives of historical personages, and some
books and pamphlets. The great value of the collection lies
in its manuscripts and pictures. The Chicago Historical
Society -wdll probably dispose of some items of the collection
not ^\ithin the scope of its work.

Committees have been formed to raise the money neces-
sary for the purchase of the collection. A committee of ladies
has been instrumental in raising the fifty thousand dollars
required as a first payment. The purchase price is one hun-
dred and fifty thousand dollars, but a reasonable time will be
allowed the Society by the Gunther family in which to raise
the money.

402

Mr. Gunther at one time offered the collection to the city
of Chicago as a gift on the condition that a fire-proof build-
ing be erected in which to care for it and make it accessible
to the pubhc. The city not having accepted the gift on these
conditions, it became on the death of Mr. Gunther the prop-
erty of his wdfe and son. The collection contains some rare
Lincoln material and some very valuable early Chicago his-
torical material. It also includes Shakespeare material, and
material relating to the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. It mil
require years to arrange and classify the collection.

Many of the most prominent men and women of Chicago
formed the committees for its purchase and in doing so ex-
pressed the opinion that the Chicago Historical Society is
one of the most valuable and potent forces for good in the
city of Chicago. Its influence extends to all educational or
cultural movements. Its officials are called upon for advice
and aid in all observances, exhibitions and pageants, and the
Society welcomes to its rooms all ages and classes of citizens.
Nearly all distinguished visitors to the city are entertained
by the Society. They are taken to see the collection in order
that they may visualize and in some measure acquire an idea
of the development of Chicago and the northwest.

Nearly all private collections, like that of Mr. Gunther,
upon the death of their owners are sold and scattered. It is
indeed fortunate that this great collection has been purchased
by an institution where it will be preserved. Of course some
items are to be sold but these may be called collections in
themselves.

Major William H. Lambert of Philadelphia who died a
few years ago owned what was then the greatest collection
of Lincolniana in existence. When he died no one of his
family felt able to keep the collection intact and so it was sold
at auction, item by item, and the collection is now widely
scattered. Dealers prefer to sell historical material to in-
dividual collectors for it is then almost sure at some time to
come again on the market and it usually commands a higher
price.

"WTien State Societies or strong institutions purchase
material, it is not likely to again be oifered for sale. It is
pennanently placed. In all sales some rare articles become
lost to the knowledge of the dealers. A private collector in

403

a small way may purchase them or an individual may for
some personal reason acquire some item. It is sometimes
years before they are traced.

Historical Societies are much more than custodians of
interesting material. They serve many practical uses. Files
of newspapers are used daily in practical business affairs.
Unless people know of some agency willing to receive and
care for it much valuable and interesting historical material
is actually thrown away or destroyed. Old letters, diaries,
plats of towns or of subdivisions of towns are greatly prized
by historical societies.

The Illinois State Historical Society from time to time
issues a circular describing the kind of material wanted.
Members of the Society should be its field workers, its special
agents in securing it. The Historical Society urges its mem-
bers to do this work as their individual service and contribu-
tion to the Society and to the extension of its work and in-
fluence.

AMERICAN INDIAN DAY.

September 24.

American Indian Day was celebrated throughout Illinois
on September 24. The day has been set aside by the Legisla-
ture for "appropriate exercises in commemoration of the
American Indians. ' ' Programs were given in public schools.
The exercises in the Chicago district were under the auspices
of the Indian Fellowship league, organized last March. Gov-
ernor Lowden is an honorary member of the league. Milford
Chandler is president.

One of the features of the celebration was a real Indian
camp in the forest preserve at Palatine on the Wisconsin
division of the Chicago and Northwestern railroad. Indian
chiefs from surrounding states representing all the tribes
which formerly roamed Illinois, pitched their tepees near
Camp Reinberg in Palatine and held their vai'ious ceremonies
and dances for three days.

404

ILLINOIS WOMEN MAY VOTE AS SOON AS SECRE-
TARY OF STATE COLBY ISSUES THE
OFFICIAL PROCLAMATION.

Illinois women excepting those residing in cities that
have election commissioners, will be enfranchised the minute
Secretary Colby issues the proclamation of suffrage ratifica-
tion. In all cities, towns, villages, townships and counties,
except where the election cordmission has been adopted, no
registration is required, and the women may vote on election
day. In the ten or eleven cities having election commissioners
a registration before August 25 is necessary as this is the
last day to register before the September primaries.

DEATH OF CAPTAIN L. R. LONG

Captain Lother Raymond Long, a marine officer on duty
in France, met a mysterious death, according to advices re-
ceived by the navy department, September 7, 1920. Captain
Long was a native of Illinois. His body was found at Bayron-
ville, France. His death was the result of a gunshot wound.

ILLINOIS COAL COMPANY BUYS $1,000,000 WORTH OF
COAL PROPERTIES

Transfer of the properties of the Pittsburgh Coal Com-
pany in Sangamon, Macoupin, Montgomery, and Bond coun-
ties, which are among the best workings in the central part
of the State, to the Illinois Coal and Coke Company, was an-
nounced September 6, 1920. The consideration was said to
be $1,000,000. The Montour mines north of Springfield, and
those at Virden and Girard together "vvith all equipments and
25,000 acres of coal lands adjoining, are included in the
transfer.

The present output of about 30,000 tons a month will be
increased by the new company, and the shaft at Auburn,
which has been sealed for several years, will be reopened.

405

"THE FOUNTAIN OF TIME."
LoKADO Tatt's Masterpiece.

The plaster model of "The Fountain of Time," Lorado
Taft's heroic sculptured group, was completed Tuesday,
August 24, after years of work by Mr. Taft. It stands at
the head of the Midway on the west side of Cottage Grove
Avenue. On September 1, 1920, the water for the first time
was turned on in the great fountain. The allegorical group
comprises scores of figures, arising from mystery, moving
through life, and vanishing in mystery. Some are danc-
ing, some proceed sorrowfully, some are Galahads, some are
satyrs. Towering over all is Mr. Taft's conception of Father
Time. The huge, weird figure dominates the movement of
the pushing throng it faces.

Lorado Taft is a professor in the Art Institute, and an
associate professor of the University of Illinois. During the
war he taught art in several of the American Expeditionary
Forces Universities in France. He ranks among the greatest
of American sculptors.

JULIET L. BANE APPOINTED STATE LEADER OF
HOME ECONOMIC EXTENSION SERVICE.

Juliet L. Bane has been appointed state leader of home
economic extension service in Illinois and associate professor
of home economics at the University of Illinois. She received
her A. B. degree at the University and her A. M. degree at
Chicago. She did emergency work in the food conservation
program during the war with the central west as her territory.

DR. W. N. C. CARLTON, LIBRARIAN OF THE NEW-
BERRY LIBRARY, CHICAGO, APPOINTED
LIBRARIAN OF THE AMERICAN
LIBRARY IN PARIS

Dr. W. N. C. Carlton, for the last ten years librarian of
the Newberry library in Chicago, has been appointed librarian
of the American Hbrary in Paris, and European representa-
tive of the American Library Association in all library activi-
ties in Europe. Dr. Carlton mil also have under his
immediate direction the A. L. A. librarv at Coblenz.

406

RAIL COMPANIES DISSOLVE.

Notices of dissolution of the Alton & Southern Railroad
Company and of the Alton & Southern Railway, both of East
St. Louis, were filed August 11, with the Secretary of State.

ILLINOIS TOWN LEADS IN PROPORTIONATE IN-
CREASE IN POPULATION IN CENSUS REPORTS
OF THE UNITED STATES

Georgia's 1920 population, with the exception of one
enumeration district not returned by the supervisor, is
2,893,601, the Census Bureau announced August 2. Ten years
ago the population was 2,609,121. The rate of growth for the
ten years was 10.9 per cent, the smallest in the history of the
State.

Wood River, in Madison county, Illinois, is given a popu-
lation of 3,476, an increase of 4,038.1 per cent. That is the
highest rate of growth shown by any place in the United
States thus far in the fourteenth census. Wood River's 1910
population was 84. Part of the town's large increase was
due to the annexation of Benbow City, which had a population
of 205, and East Wood River which had 400 people ten years
ago.

ISHAM RANDOLPH, DRAINAGE CANAL BUILDER,

DEAD.

Isham Randolph, widely known Chicago civil engineer,
who as chief engineer of the sanitary district directed the
building of the drainage canal, died August 2, at his home,
1365 East Forty-eighth Street, Chicago, of bronchial pneu-
monia. He was 72 years old.

Mr. Randolph, at one time considered for leadership in
the completion of the Panama Canal, was a self made engi-
neer. To use his own terms he "broke into the engineering
ranks with an ax nearly fifty years ago."

Bom in Virginia on March 25, 1848, the outbreak of the
Civil War in his boyhood and the subsequent blasting of his
family fortunes in the strife, forced him to forego a technical
education.

407

His first position was with the old Winchester and Stras-
burg railway, doing the humblest and hardest of work with the
engineers and surveyors. There he remained until 1872, when
he entered the service of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad,
making surveys up the Chicago extension of the line. In 1880
he came to Chicago as chief engineer of the Chicago and
Western Indiana railroad. After other important railway
work he established himself in Chicago in 1888 as a civil engi-
neer in general practice. When the decision was reached to
construct the drainage canal, he was the fifth man chosen as
chief engineer. When he entered upon this work, June 7,
1893, only about 5 per cent of the work had been done. It was
he who, on the night of January 17th, 1900, led a party to the
gates at Lockport and let the water through from the lake for
the first time to head off an injunction which he had learned
was to be asked of the Supreme court at Washington by
St. Louis next day. In 1903, as the canal was nearing com-
pletion, Mr. Eandolph became involved with Lyman E. Cooley,
its first engineer, regarding mechanical problems presented.
The controversy attracted nation-wide attention, but Mr.
Randolph was able to demonstrate the correctness of his
theories and the canal was completed successfully.

In 1907 Mr. Randolph resigned as chief engineer of the
district and accepted the position of consulting engineer.
From 1905 to 1906 he was a member of many civic and engi-
neering bodies and was active in his profession in many na-
tional and civic engineering projects.

Among his important works, aside from the canal, was
the obelisk dam above the Horseshoe Falls at Niagara. His
own design, it revolutionized dam construction in this country,
being built upright and later tipped over into the stream.

Mr. Randolph is survived by his wife, Mrs. Mary Henry
Taylor Randolph, whom he married at Chicago in 1882 and a
son, Robert Isham Randolph.

C. H. MACDOWELL MADE KNIGHT OF CROWN BY
ITALIAN GOVERNMENT.

Charles H. MacDowell, president of the Armour Fertil-
izer Works, who served the government as a "dollar a year
man" during the war, was officially notified August 2, by the
Italian government commission that he has been made a
Knight of the Crown of Italy. Mr. MacDowell worked with
the Italians, both in Washington and in Paris, assisting them
in economic problems. In addition to the Italian decoration,
Mr. MacDowell has also received the Order of Commander,
Crown of Belgium, from King Albert and the French Cross
of the Legion of Honor. He was a member of the United
States Peace Commission.

EDWARD BURGESS BUTLER GIVES PASADENA,
CALIFORNIA, SITE FOR ART MUSEUM.

Edward Burgess Butler, art connoisseur, who retired
from the presidency of Butler Brothers, wholesale merchants
of Chicago, six years ago, has donated the site for a new Art
Museum for the city of Pasadena, California. Mr. Butler,
whose home is in Winnetka, is at present in Pasadena. Mr.
Butler was 60 years old when he gave up the presidency of
his firm to Homer A. Stillwell. At the time he said he wanted
to "play." He was 16 years old when he began his career
with the firm of Butler, Rogers & Co., in Boston as bundle boy.
When he retired he immediately took up the study of art.

Mr. Butler is a director of the Chicago Art Institute, and
donor of the George Inness room of paintings. He has
achieved some fame as a painter of California landscapes.

ILLINOIS TO PAY $60,000 FOR OLD CAPITOL AT
VANDALIA.

Major Joseph C. Burtchi of Vandalia closed a contract
with the State in Vandalia, August 5, for the sale of the old
Vandalia Court House, which at one time was the Illinois
eapitol. The State will pay $60,000 for the historic building
and preserve it as a memorial.

409

ILLINOIS WATERWAY.

Actual construction work on the Illinois Waterway for
which an expenditure of $20,000,000 was authorized in an
amendment to the State constitution voted in 1908, will begin
the middle of October, it was announced on September 9 by
Director Frank I. Bennett of the State Department of Public
Works and Buildings.

The first work will be done at Marseilles and Starved
Rock. The project, the culmination of over 100 years of agita-
tion, will extend from Lockport, on the Des Plaines River, a
distance of sixty-five miles, and will connect approximately
15,000 miles of improved waterways in the Mississippi Valley
and make continuous navigation between the Mississippi
River and the Great Lakes.

LAKES-TO-GULF LOCK CONTRACT TO BE LET SOON.

Governor Frank 0. Lowden said Tuesday, August
31st, in a report received by the federal power commission at
Washington, that the great lakes to the gulf waterway has
taken on definite shape, and that the contract for one of the
locks will be let within a few days. It will be part of the
Lockport-Utica inland waterway link, which, when completed,
will give 15,000 miles of inland waterways for barge trans-
portation between the great lakes and the gulf.

In his letter. Governor Lowden asked for surplus water
from the link for the development of power. Because of the
great expense, plans for deta,iled power development have not
been prepared. Governor Lowden said. He said federal ap-
proval would be asked first.

LAKES TO GULF CONTRACT.

Bids for construction of the Marseilles lock, the first step
in the three year $20,000,000 program which will connect
Chicago and the Great Lakes with the Gulf of Mexico, were
opened Monday, October 18, 1920, in the oflBces of the State
department of public works and buildings. Five firms sub-
mitted bids. Green & Sons Co., 563 McCormick building, bid
$1,373,115, the lowest offer and the contract probably will go
to that company.

410

M. G. Barnes, chief engineer of the division of waterways
said: "According to the terms of the contract, which will
probably be awarded in a few days, construction must be
started in thirty days and completed within two years. That
means Thanksgiving Day will see work on the lock well under
way.

"Specifications for the construction of the lock and dam
at Starved Rock have been prepared and will be advertised,
and the first of the year should see work on this improvement
started. Then contracts for the deepening and widening of
the channel will be let, and the entire improvement will be
under way.

"We are working on a three year program and at the
end of that time, Chicago will be connected with the Missis-
sippi Valley by thousands of miles of improved waterways,
and the Great Lakes to the Gulf channel, the result of 100
years of agitation, ^vill be a reality."
Other bids received were :

Bates & Eogers $1,547,152.50

Oscar Daniels Company 1,610,588.00

Grant Smith & Co 1,825,659.20

Thompson, Black & Co 2,200,513.00

ST. JOHN'S EVANGELICAL CHURCH, NEW BERLIN,
ILLINOIS, CELEBRATES 50TH ANNIVERSARY.

Several hundred people from Springfield, Chatham,
Jacksonville, Pleasant Plains, Farmington and Edinburg
joined in the celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of St.
John's Evangelical Lutheran Church at New Berlin, IlUnois,
October 4th. Both dinner and supper were served in the hall
at the high school, and over six hundred persons were in
attendance.

The ministers were. Rev. E. Wegehaupt and wife, Chat-
ham, Illinois ; Rev. J. Kuppler and wife, Jacksonville, IlUnois ;
Rev. E. Gross, Pleasant Plains; Prof. R. Neitzel and wife,
Concordia College; Rev. J. Herzer and wife, and Prof. R.
Schoknect and wife, all of Springfield.

Divine service in the German language was held at 10 :00
o'clock in the morning, with a sermon by Rev. Fedderson.

411

Rev. Frederick Brand, pastor of Trinity Evangelical Lu-
theran church preached the sermon in the afternoon and the
evening speaker was Prof. L. Wessel of Concordia College,
Springfield. Special music was a feature of the day's pro-
gram. Miss M. Meyer, accompanied by Prof. Schoknect on
the organ, sang a beautiful solo.

Rev. H. Wittrock, who has been pastor of the church since
1912, has resigned and will serve the Lutheran Church at
Mt. Pulaski. He mil leave in the course of a few weeks.
Prof. R. Neitzel of Concordia College, Springfield, will serve
the congregation until Rev. Wittrock 's successor is named.
A call has been extended to Rev. Claudius Hein of Minnesota.

MRS. SUSANNA DAVIDSON FRY, PIONEER WORKER
AMONG WOMEN, DIES.

Funeral services for Mrs. Susanna Davidson Fry were
held in Bloomington, Illinois, October 12, 1920. Mrs. Fry was
a pioneer worker in behalf of women's interests. For many
years she held the chair of belles-lettres in Illinois Wesleyan
University, and was one of the judges of the liberal arts de-
partment of the Chicago World's Fair. She was a prominent
worker in the Women 's Christian Temperance Union, and an
intimate friend of Frances E. Willard.

IMMIGRANTS TO CHICAGO APPROACH
PRE-WAR TOTAL.

Miss Grace Abbott, executive secretary of the IlHnois
Immigrants' commission, says the number of foreigners ar-
riving in Chicago is fast approaching the total who came
before the war. She says the State is sure to have new prob-
lems to deal with as a result of the influx.

The people now arriving come from suffering and devas-
tated regions of Europe, and will no doubt bear the impress
of what they have endured during the last six years.

The Illinois Commission expects to achieve results by
study of the changing conditions, by keeping in touch with
immigrant groups, and by making accessible to them official
and private agencies, which can be of assistance during their
period of readjustment.

412

GOVERNOR LOWDEN NAMES PILGRIM COMMITTEE.

The 300th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims was
celebrated in New York City in September under auspices of
the Sulgrave Institution. On September 18, a reception of
guests from England and Holland was held on the arrival of
the ship Caronia.

The committee appointed by Governor Lowden for Illinois
to act with the Sulgrave Institute in promoting the Tercenten-
ary celebration, was composed of the following named
persons :

General Charles Dawes Miss CorneKa Williams

Rev. William 0. Waters Mrs. Henry Purmot

Mrs. Seymour Morris, Frank A. Alden

Paul Blatchford Emmons J. Alden

John W. Alvord Charles Alden

Edgar M. Snow Miss Caroline Alden Huling

Rev. J. J. K. McClure

CHICAGO TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION UNVEILS TAB-
LET IN MEMORY OF MEMBERS WHO FELL
IN THE WORLD WAR.

A bronze tablet in honor of the members of Chicago Typo-
graphical Union, No. 16, "who made the supreme sacrifice"
during the war, was dedicated in Elmwood Cemetery, Sep-
tember 12, by the Union.

On the tablet are inscribed the names of Roy J. Broder-
son, Frank Devaney, Emil Kummer, Francis B. Laramie,
Gerald D. Martin, Felix W. McGlone, Frank T. McNally,
George F. Miller, Paul R. Motzny, W. H. Niemann, Robert S.
Smith, Thomas F. Stanek, Joseph J. Witzel, Frank B. Smft
and WilHam Zalavak.

The Rev. F. C. Spalding prayed, there was a roll call, a
volley of farewell shots, and a solitary bugle blowing taps.
After the tablet had been unveiled there were addresses by
Lieut. Col. Gordon Johnston, Barratt O'Hara, and E. M.
McGuire of the Buck Privates Society, A. E. F.

413

HONOR WAR HEROES.

Mrs. T. M. Farley and Mrs. William Anderson, gold star
mothers, unveiled a monument October 10, 1920, in Thatcher's
Woods, River Forest, in memory of the boys who "went
west" in the World War.

The tablet was presented by the Gold Star Mother's As-
sociation, of which Mrs. B. W. Swift is pi'esident. Five
hundred persons witnessed the ceremony.

The entire forest preserve was dressed in gold and reds
of autumn. A thick carpet of leaves covered the ground.
Addresses were made by Bishop Samuel Fallows, Chief
Forester Ransom E. Kennicott, the Rev. John L. O'Donnell,
former Captain and Chaplain of the 132d infantry; Judge
Fisher, Gen. Abel Davis, and Mrs. Swift. Several County
Commissioners attended the ceremonv.

ROCKFORD, ILLINOIS, MEMORIAL PARK NAMED
AFTER WAR HERO.

Mr. and Mrs. Winthrop Ingersoll have presented the
Rockford Park Commission $50,000. This was announced by
the Rockford Commission, October 26, 1920. It is a memorial
to their son. Lieutenant Clayton C. Ingersoll, who lost his life
in France while in aviation service. The gift ^vill be used to
complete the purchase of a pubhc park which will bear Lieu-
tenant Ingersoll's name.

STATUES OF FORMER GOVERNORS PALMER AND

YATES TO BE PLACED ON STATE

CAPITOL GROUNDS.

The Illinois department of public works and buildings
awarded Tuesday, October 19, 1920, contracts for bronze
monuments to the memorj^ of John M. Palmer, Major General
of Volunteers in the Civil War, former governor and United
States Senator, and for the Civil War governor, Richard
Yates. They are to be placed in positions in the State House
grounds. The contract for the Palmer statue was awarded to
Leonard Cruuelle of Chicago, and Albin Polacek of Chicago
will make the Yates statue.

414

ILLINOIS WOMEN TO GET SEPARATE
BALLOT BOXES

Separate ballot boxes for women and separate tally sheets
were ordered by Attorney General Brundage and Secretary
of State Emmerson in telegrams, September 3, 1920, to all
Illinois county clerks. This step is necessary because of
the possibility of litigation over suffrage.

METHODISTS PUECHASE SITE FOR TWENTY-STORY
TEMPLE IN THE LOOP, CHICAGO.

Announcement of the appointment of the Rev. John
Thompson, D. D., Superintendent of City Missions, to be pas-
tor of the First Methodist Church, Clark and Washington
Streets, was made October 27, 1920, by Bishop Thomas
Nicholson.

Dr. Thompson will have supervision of the planning and
construction of the great twenty story temple which is to re-
place the building which has long been a land mark on the
corner. Provision for a ground space of eighty feet on Wash-
ington and one hundred and eighty-two feet on Clark Street
was made through the purchase of the fee and leasehold at
21-27 North Clark Street, announced October 27, by Senator
George W. Dixon, chairman of the board of trustees. The pur-
chase was from the Kohn estate and Harry C. Moir for a con-
sideration of $580,000. The transaction ends years of negotia-
tion begun by the late Arthur Dixon.

Several of the lower stories will be used for housing the
Sunday School, the Epworth League activities, and social
and recreational rooms. With the completion of the new
building, the church, which was established in Chicago in 1833,
and has been on the present site since 1834, will enlarge its
scope to include civic, social and educational departments
aimed to meet the needs of a central church in a great city.

"I regard the project as one of the most significant enter-
prises in the history of Methodism in the last quarter of a
century," Bishop Nicholson said. "It A%ill be a great oflSce
and business building; but its chief interest \vi\\ be its re-
hgious side. There will be a great auditorium seating 3,000
persons. It is planned to have a commanding pulpit with all

415

year round evangelistic and other enterprises. There will be
a room just off the street for quiet prayer. The rescue work
of the Juvenile Court, the Americanization program, the
French Church, and the down town mission work will be pro-
vided for."

EQUIPMENT FOR STATE MUSEUM IN CENTENNIAL
BUILDING SELECTED

The selection of equipment for the State Museum, which
will be moved to the Centennial Memorial Building upon its
completion, was considered by the board of State Museum
advisers recently. More than $200,000 will be necessary for
the equipment.

Members of the board who met were: Charles L. Hut-
chinson, Chicago ; Prof. Henry B. Ward of the University of
UHnois; Charles F. Owen, and Charles F. Millspaugh of the
Field Museum, Chicago, and Edward W. Payne of Spring-
field.

Two men who still know the art of making glass flowers
have been located, and a group of flowers peculiar to the State
may be incorporated in the exhibit.

CAPTAIN WILLIAM VINCENT, CIVIL WAR VETERAN,
DIES AT THE AGE OF 97 YEARS.

Captain William Vincent died at his home in Galena,
Illinois, October thirteenth, 1920, aged 97 years. He was
captain of Co. A, 96th Illinois Volunteers in the Civil War,
and was wounded in the battle of Chickamauga. He is sur-
vived by two brothers, four children, twenty-five grandchil-
dren, and fifteen great-grandchildren.

CLAYTON E. CRAFTS, FORMER SPEAKER OF THE

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

DIES IN CHICAGO.

Clayton Edward Crafts, attorney and former speaker of
the Illinois legislature, died at his residence, 5448 Washington
Boulevard, Chicago, August 26, 1920. He was 72 years old
and a Chicago pioneer.

416

Mr. Crafts came to Chicago in 1869 to practice law. He
was elected to the State legislature in 1881, and served con-
tinuously until 1894. In 1891-92 he was Speaker, the first
Democrat to hold the position since 1863. He was Chairman
of the Democratic campaign committee of Cook county in
1888, when the party carried Cook county for Cleveland and
Palmer.

Mr. Crafts is survived by two brothers, P. M. Crafts of
Mantua, Ohio, and Stanley C. Crafts, and a son and daughter,
Hawky K. Crafts and Mrs. Frederick W. Job of Chicago.

REV. THOMAS DAVENAL BUTLER, CLERGYMAN
AND CIVIL WAR VETERAN, DIES.

The Rev. Thomas Davenal Butler, for more than sixty
years a clergyman of the Christian church, died at his home
in Batavia, Illinois, October 17, 1920, aged 83 years. He was
known nationally as church editor of the New York Inde-
pendent, and associate editor of the Christian Standard of
Cincinnati, and the Christian Century of Chicago. He was a
Civil War veteran.

COL. GEORGE L. PITTENGER, PIONEER OF
SOUTHERN ILLINOIS, DIES.

Col, George L. Pittenger, 76 years of age, distinguished
pioneer citizen of southern Illinois, died at Centralia, October
27, 1920. He was a former mine owner and Colonel on Gov-
ernors Tanner and Yates staffs, builder of part of the city of
Centralia, and the Pittenger Hotel and Opera House, and vet-
eran of the Civil War. Colonel Pittenger raised a regiment
for the Spanish- American War. He leaves a widow and one
son, George.

JOHN HUSTON, FORMERLY MEMBER OF THE LEGIS-
LATURE, DIES AT BLANDINVILLE, ILLINOIS.

John Huston, former member of the Illinois Legislature
from the Thirty-second district, died September 16, 1920, of
heart trouble at his home in Blandinville. John Huston was
born near Blandinville, in 1848; his parents settled there in

417

1829. His father, John Huston, was in the Black-Hawk war,
the first treasurer of McDonough county, member of the legis-
lature in 1850 and Constitutional Convention of 1848.

John Huston, second, completed his education at the Old
South College, Abingdon. In 1870 he married AUie Lovitt,
He engaged in farming and breeding live stock. In the 80 's
he was in the front rank as an importer of Percherons. He
went into the banking business in 1895, the title being the
Huston Banking Company, of which he was president. He
was a member of the Illinois Legislature 1908, 1910, 1912, 1914.
He was a member of the first commission for the observance
of the Illinois State Centennial.

MRS. ANNA BURIAN, 104 YEARS OF AGE,
DIES IN CHICAGO.

Mrs. Anna Burian, 104 years old, a resident of Chicago
since 1875 and reputed to be the city's oldest inhabitant,
realized her wish and died on August 15.

"I have outlived my span," she had often observed to
her family. "My husband, my friends, all the old familiar
faces are gone. I alone am left." Her husband died in 1880.
They had six children. All are dead. There are eleven grand-
children, still living, and forty-six great grandchildren, all of
whom are alive and residents of Chicago.

Mrs. Burian made her home with a granddaughter, Mrs.
James Lhotak, 2313 West Fiftieth Street. She was what the
world terms an old-fashioned woman. She rounded out each
day with her knitting, Bible reading and housework. She had
never been inside of a motion picture theater. She retained
full possession of her faculties until the last. She had never
worn spectacles. Death occurred after a brief coughing spell.

She was an exemplar of the healthful attributes of coun-
try life. There was no restless age in Bohemia when she lived
there. For twenty-five years she worked beside her husband
in the harvest fields performing what would be considered
men's labor in this country. It was to that period that she
ascribed her remarkable health and vigor. Mrs. Lhotak re-
called one of her habitual expressions : * ' My goodness, I think
I'll live forever and I have seen so much now that I'm tired
and want to go. It has been a wonderful 100 years."

418

When she was bom May 23, 1816, in the little town of
Smolci, Bohemia, when that ethnographic waif was the vassal
of Francis I of Austria. Kings and emperors have since
become passe. Bohemia is now a part of the Czeeho-Slovak
republic. Mrs. Burian remembered the Civil War, the Franco-
Prussian War, the Spanish-American War, in each of which
she had relatives. In her life-time there were perfected the
steam engine, the telephone, and telegraph, the subsea cable,
the automobile and the airplane. It was when recalUng these
inventions and the consequent advancement of mankind since
1816 that she was wont to tell her great-grandchildren: "I
have lived in the greatest century the world has known."

Mrs. Burian was buried in St. Adelbert's Cemetery,
Chicago.

MRS. MARY HART OF LIBERTYVILLE, OLDEST RESI-
DENT OF LAKE COUNTY, ILLINOIS, DIES.

Mrs. Mary Hart of Libertyville who was a resident of
Lake Bluff when that community was called Rockland, and is
beheved to be the oldest resident of Lake county, died at her
home, aged 90 years. Up to her ninetieth anniversary in
March, she was quite active.

LETTER OF GEORGE WASHINGTON FOUND IN
DECATUR, ILLINOIS.

A letter signed by George Washington and a bas-relief
of Washington in his youth were among the interesting things
which were put on exhibition by the Decatur Daughters of the
American Revolution in the Art Institute in Decatur. The
letter is of more than usual interest because no one in Decatur
seemed to know of its existence until a few days ago.

When the attic of the Millikin homestead was being
cleaned the letter, with other documents which had at one
time belonged to Capt. William Bartlett, was found among
papers which had belonged to ]\Ir. and Mrs. James Millikin.

The letter was written in Cambridge, Mass., November 5,
1775, by Washington's secretary but signed boldly by "G.
Washington." It was written to Captain Bartlett and con-

419

tains directions for the transfer of some prisoners. It had
been folded to form its own envelope and addressed on the
outside. Because of several other letters also belonging to
Capt. Bartlett which were ^nth this letter, it is thought that
the Eevolutionary captain was an ancestor of Mrs. MilliMn.
The Washington bas-relief was presented to the D. A. E..
by Mrs. Elizabeth Wells on October 7, 1920, who gives it to
be kept in the D. A. R. exhibit in the Art Institute. It is the
first gift of the sort. It was made by Giselle Durfee after a
die made by Lorado Taft.

season's fikst meeting.

The meeting of the Stephen Decatur chapter Thursday,
October 7, 1920, was the first of the season. Because the
women wished to see the unusually interesting collection of
relics, all of which antedate the Civil war, no program was
planned. Mrs. J. K. Stafford is the chairman of the com-
mittee which collected the relics, most of which belong to
members of the chapter. In the collection are chairs, old
willow ware tea sets, quaint old pierced copper lanterns, pew-
ter plates, brass candle sticks, pressed glass and charming but
enormous old combs.

Relics of the Revolutionary war are more in evidence
than those of the Civil war. Bunglesome old muskets of
Colonial days, worn powder horns and a sword used by one
of Napoleon soldiers in the retreat from Moscow are among
the mute reminders of earlier wars which are in the exhibit.
Hooked rugs of wonderful colors hand woven bed spreads,
and candle molds speak for the part women had in the earlier
life of the country.

WILL. ADD TO LIBKAKY,

In the short business session which preceded the opening
of the exhibition the members decided to make every effort
to add to the reference library of the chapter. The chapter
already owns a number of lineage books and probably a dozen
copies of histories of counties from which some of the mem-
bers come. To this collection it is proposed to add books on
genealogy and all county histories or other similar books
which can be obtained.

As these books can not usually be bought, it is the plan of
the chapter to ask the owners to loan them. They will be

420

marked with the owners and the chapter names and will be
placed in the reference room of the city library where all
interested may have easy access to them. No one will be
allowed to remove them from the room.

The exhibit of relics was open during the month of Octo-
ber. The articles were well displayed in the two south rooms
on the second floor of the Art Institute.

GIFTS OF BOOKS, LETTERS, PICTURES AND MANUSCRIPTS TO
THE ILLINOIS STATE HISTORICAL LIBRARY AND SOCIETY.

Banks Family of Maine. By Charles Edward Banks, M. D., Boston, 1890.
Gift of Col. Charles E. Banks, 2018 Prairie Ave., Chicago.

Bonython Family of Maine. By Charles Edward Banks, M. D., Pub. not
given. Gift of Col. Charles E. Banks, 2018 Prairie Ave., Chicago.

Conkling Family. History of the Conkling Family. Typewritten copy.
Gift of Miss Alice Conkling, Springfield, Illinois.

Connecticut, Litchfield, Conn. Historic Litchfield. Address delivered at
the Bi-Centennial Celebration of the Town of Litchfield, August 1,
1920. By Hon. Morris W. Seymour, LL. D.

Connecticut. Litchfield, Conn. The Bi-Centennial Celebration of the Settle-
ment of Litchfield, Conn. By Alain C. White, Litchfield, Conn., His-
torical Society. These two items gift of Mrs. Morris W. Seymour,
Litchfield, Conn.

Currency. Five Dollar Bill on Railroad Bank, paid during the Civil War
to an employee of the Railroad Decatur, Illinois, Bank. Gift of Mrs.
H. C. Ettinger, Springfield, Illinois.

DeLang, Marie Charlotte. 1826-1914. Article from The Chicago Inter-
Ocean, November 30, 1913. Gift of Mr. Frederick C. Delang, No. 555
Longwood Ave., Glencoe, Illinois.

Felt, Dorr E. "Is Organized Labor Slipping?" Address delivered before
the National Association of Employment Managers, Chicago, December
13, 1919.

Felt, Dorr E. "Labor's Position in the Economic Structure." An address
delivered before the Manufacturers and Wholesale Merchants Board.
The Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, October 15, 1919. These two
items gift of Mr. Dorr E. Felt, 1713-1735 N. Paulina St., Chicago,
Illinois.

Illinois State. Franklin County, Illinois War History, 1832-1919. Gift of
Mr. Hal Trovillion, Herron, Illinois.

Illinois State. Goodman, (Mrs.) L. Belle. Illinois Voters' Handbook, 1914.
Gift of Mrs. L. Belle Goodman, Champaign, Illinois.

Illinois Land Book, of various Counties and Townships. Belonged to Chas.
T. Hillyer, President of the Charter Oak National Bank of Hartford,
Conn., who was interested to a very large extent in loans upon western
lands. This volume was secured with other books, maps, etc., in the
attic of the Hillyer homestead in Hartford, Conn., by Mr. George S.
Godard, State Librarian, Connecticut State Library, and by him pre-
sented to the Illinois State Historical Library.

Illinois State. Williamson County, Illinois, in the World War, 1917, 1918.
Gift of Mr. Hal Trovillion, Herron, Illinois.

Lincoln, Abraham. Lincoln at Gettysburg. From the original painting by
Fletcher C. Ransom. Reproduced and published by The Gerlach-Bark-
low Company, Joliet, Illinois. Gift of The Gerlach-Barklow Company,
Joliet, Illinois.

422

Lincoln, Abraham. Framed wreath of Arbor Vitae. This wreath was on
the casket of Abraham Lincoln at the time of his funeral in Springfield,
and one of the members of the committee who cared for the flowers,
handed it to Doctor Philip Gillett, Superintendent of the School for the
Deaf in Jacksonville, as a souvenir, and it has been retained by the
family of Doctor Gillett until this time, and by them presented to the
Illinois State Historical Library.

Lytle Family. Chart of, prepared by Leonard Lytle of Detroit, Mich. Gift
of Mr. Leonard Lytle of Detroit, Mich.

Maps. Illinois Traveller. H. S. Tanner. Map, 1830. Published in Phila-
delphia. Gift of Mrs. Clara Kern Bayliss, Kent, Ohio.

Means, (Rev.) W. E. The First Old Methodist Episcopal Church, Paris,
Illinois, 1837-1855. By Rev. W. E. Means. Gift of Rev. W. E. Means,
Paris, Illinois.

Newspapers. DeKalb County News, March 6, 1867, to December 18, 1867.
(Except May 8, July 10.) January 8, 1868, to February 26, 1868. De-
Kalb Printing Association. R. Hopkins, President.

Newspapers. DeKalb County News. March 4, 1868, to December 23, 1868.
(Except July 8.) January 6, 1869, to May 26, 1869. DeKalb Printing
Association. K. Stiles, Ed. Gift of H. W. Fay. Custodian Lincoln
Monument, Springfield, Illinois.

Newspapers. Montgomery News, June 8, 1920, containing an account of
the Silver Anniversary for Rev. Ezra Keller, Pastor of St. Paul's Evan-
gelical Lutheran Church of Hillsboro, Illinois. Gift of Mr. I. S. Black-
welder, Chicago.

Park College, Mo., Bulletin. Catalog Number, 1920-1921. Gift of Mrs.
George A. Lawrence, Galesburg, Illinois.

Robbins, Edward E. Memorial Address on the Life and Character of
Edward Everett Robbins, delivered in the House of Representatives of
the United States, January 27, 1919. Gift of Hon. Richard Yates,
Member of Congress, Washington, D. C.

Shabbona. Ottawa Indian Chief. Photograph. Gift of H. W. Fay, Cus-
todian Lincoln Monument, Springfield, Illinois.

Venner, Thomas. Thomas Venner, the Boston Wine-Cooper and fifth mon-
archy man. Reprinted from the New England Historical and Genea-
logical Register for October, 1893.Gift of Col. Charles E. Banks, 2018
Prairie Ave., Chicago.

The Washington Sketch Book. Supplement No. 5 for Illinois. (2 copies.)
Gift of Mrs. George A. Lawrence, Galesburg, Illinois.

The Wonder Book of the World War. Gift of Mrs. George A. Lawrence,
Galesburg, Illinois.

NECROLOGY

ALONZO L. KIMBER

1862-1920
By Anne C. Dickson

The Society lost one of its most loyal and enthusiastic
supporters when Alonzo L. Kimber passed away in Chicago,
on October 14th, 1920.

Born in Waverly, Illinois, January 5th, 1862, he was the
son of Alonzo L. Kimber, formerly of Ohio, and Mary Cecilia
Evans Kimber, born in Carrollton, Illinois. He attended the
Waverly public school until the death of his father, in 1880,
when he went into the Waverly bank, which he left in about a
year to attend Brown's Business College, in Jacksonville,
Illinois, from which he graduated. He then accepted a posi-
tion in the Jacksonville National Bank, staying there for
eleven years and leaving to take charge of a mercantile
agency in Chicago. In a short time, he entered the Illinois
Trust and Savings Bank of Chicago and spent the last twenty-
four years of his life with that institution, being a trusted
and valued member of the force.

On December 14th, 1893, he was married at Jacksonville
to Margaret Hall of that city, who, with one daughter, Mary
CeciHa, survives him. Two children died in infancy.

Mr. Kimber was a man of unusually high ideals, -with, a
strong love for the beautiful and the highest expressions of
art, literature and music. An inveterate reader of the best
books, he was usually found to be immersed in some classic,
during his leisure hours, and his collection of works pertain-
ing to the history of Illinois is perhaps the best one owned by
an individual. He was well known to the dealers in several
cities, and enjoyed nothing more than the finding of some
rare old musty tome telling of early days in the Prairie State.
Masonry also appealed to him, and he was affiliated with
Waverly Lodge No. 118. He was Eminent Commander of
Jacksonville Commandery No. 31 Knights Templar in his
28th year, and also a member of the Chicago Temple of
Shriners. The Masons conducted his funeral, held at Wav-

HON. EDWARD L. MERRITT

426

erly on October 16th, and the services in the beautiful, quiet
cemetery there were impressive in their solemnity.

The members of the Society, which included many of his
close friends, will miss his quiet appreciation of the best offer-
ings, for he enjoyed the meetings and attended whenever it
was possible for him to do so.

HON. EDWARD LIVINGSTON MERRITT

1836-1920

By Henry Wilson Clendenin

Few Illinois men of his day and generation lived as long
and as active a life as a publicist as Hon. Edward L. Merritt,
the subject of this sketch. He was born in New York City,
June 25, 1836, and came to Illinois five years later with his
father, Hon. John W. Merritt, a law^-er and a member of the
law firm of O'Connor, Brady and Merritt. The Merritt
family first settled on a farm near Le])anon, St. Clair county,
and subsequently moved to Salem, Marion county.

It was during his life in Salem that Mr. Merritt began his
study of public affairs. He had as tutors, beside his father.
Judge Silas Bryan, father of William Jennings Bryan; Wil-
liam R. Morrison and other public men well versed in Illinois
and national questions, and was well fitted when he came to
Springfield in 1864 to publish and edit the Illinois State
Register, to take his place as one of the leading journalists of
the state. He was then in his twenty-eighth year. He con-
tinued with the State Register for thirteen years, or until
1877, when he sold the above newspaper to a company com-
posed of Governor John M. Palmer and several other citizens
of Springfield.

It was while identified with the State Register that Mr.
Merritt became widely known throughout the state. He
served as a member of the Democratic state central committee
from the Springfield congressional district for twelve years,
the greater part of the time as its secretary. A few years
after he declined further service on the committee, he served
as first assistant secretary of the Democratic national con-
vention which nominated Governor Grover Cleveland of New
York, for President of the United States, and also held the

427

same positions in the national Democratic conventions that
renominated President Cleveland in 1888 and 1892.

As an editorial writer Mr. Merritt was forceful, courage-
ous, accurate. His editorials carried weight and gave him
large influence in public affairs. Long after he relinquished
his connection with journalism, and until a short time before
his death he contributed to a number of papers, and with that
courage that distinguished him he invariably signed the
articles with his full name. Among the newspapers in which
his articles appeared were the St. Louis Republic, the Chicago
Tribune and the State Register, and they attracted wide at-
tention.

Mr. Merritt was an honorary pallbearer at the burial of
Abraham Lincoln, and his reminiscences of the funeral serv-
ices in Springfield, which he published in the State Register
in 1909, were copied and commented upon by newspapers all
over the country. The Chicago Tribune copied the article in
full, and paid tribute to Mr. Merritt 's ability as a writer,
although the Tribune was frequently opposed to Mr. Mer-
ritt 's political views.

In 1866, President Andrew Johnson appointed Mr. Mer-
ritt, United States Pension Agent at Springfield. He was
appointed a member of the Springfield board of education in
1875, and was reappointed in 1878 and again in 1881.

In the campaign of 1874, when the Democrats elected a
nominee on their state ticket for the second time since 1856,
the campaign was under his direction, while in 1876 he again
managed the campaign.

From 1887 to 1888 he was editor and general manager
of the Omaha, Nebraska, Herald, one of the largest news-
papers west of the Mississippi river at that time. It is now
Senator Hitchcock's World-Herald. William Jennings Bryan
was editor of this paper within a few years after this time,
and Mr. Merritt formed a close friendship with the Great
Commoner that lasted throughout his life.

He was elected state representative from the Sangamon
county district in 1890, and served in the Thirty-seventh gen-
eral assembly. He was reelected to the Thirty-eighth general
assembly in 1892, and was again reelected in 1894 from this
district. While serving in the legislature during these three
terms, he was the author of many important laws. Among

428

these was the law increasing the fees for articles of incorpo-
ration issued by the secretary of state, and this measure has
brought millions of dollars in revenue to Illinois. In 1914
he again entered the lower house of the general assembly
from the Forty-fifth district, serving his fourth term in the
state legislature. During that period he was the author of
many good laws, which won for him such commendation.

Under President Grover Cleveland, Mr. Merritt held the
position of Appraiser of Abandoned U. S. Military Reserva-
tions.

Edward L. Merritt was married three times. His first
marriage was in 1860, to Miss Rebecca J. Tong. She died in
1868, leaving him three children: Lyda J., Wesley and Ed-
ward, the latter dying in infancy. His second marriage took
place in December, 1870, when he was united with Miss Char-
lotte C. George. To them five children were born : Frederick,
Mrs. Caroline Pasfield of Springfield, Illinois ; Mrs. Susan D.
Loring of Boston, Mass. ; William E. and Mary S. She passed
away in February, 1897. He was united in marriage for the
third time on June 29, 1910, with Miss Caroline Shaw of
Springfield, Illinois, who survives him.

During Mr. Edward L. Merritt 's public and semi-public
career of nearly sixty years, most of them spent in Spring-
field, he gained many close friends, political and social, not
only in Illinois but also in other states. He was what is
called "a good mixer," and found time to cultivate the com-
panionship of those whose friendship he prized. Those of
the host of his friends now living remember him with more
than ordinary feelings of affection and of appreciation of his
many admirable traits of character.

In private life Mr. Merritt was a good citizen — always
interested in every good work for the betterment of the city.
He was a member of St. Paul's Episcopal church and for
many years served on its ofl&cial board. He also belonged
to a number of civic societies and social clubs, among these
the Illinois State Historical Society, of which he was a very
early member.

Mr. Merritt was a patriotic citizen and was active in
patriotic work during the Civil war. He assisted in raising
a volunteer regiment for service in the Civil war, but was
prevented from ser\dng with it from circumstances which

429

were not his fault. He felt that he could have attained high
rank, as his brother, Wesley Merritt did, had he not been
prevented from serving.

Mr. Merritt was a kind and devoted husband and father.
His home was a family sanctuar^^ and he took great pride in
his children, to all of whom he gave a good education. All
of his children, except one that died in infancy, are living
today. One of these, William E., was a graduate of the West
Point Military Academy.

Hon. John W. Merritt, the father of the subject of this
sketch, who was a lawj'er and journalist, served in an official
capacity ^vith the state constitutional convention of 1862.
Edward L. Merritt 's brother, Thomas E. Merritt, served as
representative and senator for many years in the general
assembly of Illinois, and his brother, Wesley Merritt, who
graduated from West Point Military Academy, entered the
Civil war as a lieutenant of cavalry at the beginning of the
war. He won by his bravery and gallantry repeated promo-
tions, until at the close of the war he was a major general.
He was present at the surrender of General Robert E. Lee
at Appomatox. He took part in "Sheridan's Ride," and was
a close friend of both Generals Grant and Sheridan, who re-
garded him as one of the best and bravest cavalry com-
manders in the war for the preservation of the Union.

In preparing this sketch of the life and activities of Hon.
Edward Livingston Merritl, the writer of course could touch
only on the high points ot liis career, and of these very briefly.
It is to such men as the subject of this sketch the State of
Illinois owes much for its growth and greatness. The people
of the state have not fully appreciated their services, much
of it unselfish and unremunerated. It is the private citizen,
after all, that makes the state and builds up its institutions.
Official life may polish the surface. It may bring into the
limelight and add brilliancy to the record, but it is to the
quiet, unobtrusive men and women, some of them perhaps
plodders, that the solid foundation and the superstructure to
a verj^ large extent owe their strength and permanence.

And in these Edward Livingston Merritt performed his
share if not more. He passed over to his reward full of
years, September 4, 1920, in his eighty-fifth year.

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS OF THE ILLINOIS STATE
HISTORICAL LIBRARY AND SOCIETY.

No 1. *A Bibliography of Newspapers published in Illinois prior to 1860. Pre-
pared by Edmund J. James, Ph. D., and Milo J. Loveless. 94 pp. 8 vo. Spring-
field, 1899.

No. 2. 'Information relating to the Territorial Laws of Illinois passed from 1809
to 1812. Prepared by Edmund J. James, Ph. D. 15 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1899.

No. 3. *The Territorial Records of Illinois. Edited by Edmund J. James, Ph. D.
170 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1901.

No. 4. 'Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society for the year 1900.
Edited by E. B. Greene, Ph. D. 55 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1900.

No. 5. 'Alphabetical Catalog of the Books, Manuscripts, Pictures and Curios of
the Illinois State Historical Library. Authors. Titles and Subjects. Compiled by
Jessie Palmer Weber. 363 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1900.

Nos. 6 to 26. 'Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society for the years
1901-1919. (Nos. 6 to 18 out of print.)

'Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. I. Edited by H. W. Beckwith, President of
the Board of Trustees of the Illinois State Historical Library. 642 pp. 8 vo. Spring-
field, 1903.

'Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. II. Virginia Series, Vol. I. The Cahokia
Records, 17781790. Edited by Clarence Walworth Alvord. CLVI and 663 pp. 8 vo.
Springfield, 1907.

'Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. III. Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858. Lin-
coln Series, Vol. I. Edited by Edwin Erie Sparks, Ph. D. 627 pp. 8 vo. Spring-
field, 1908.

'Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. IV. Executive Series, Vol. I. The Gover-
nor's Letter Books, 1818-1834. Edited by Evarts Boutell Greene and Clarence Wal-
worth Alvord. XXXII and 317 pp. 8 vo. Springfield. 1909.

Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. V. Virginia Series. Vol. II, Kaskaskia Rec-
ords, 1778-1790. Edited by Clarence Walworth Alvord. L and 681 pp. 8vo. Spring-
field. 1909.

'Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. VI. Bibliographical Series, Vol. I, News-
papers and Periodicals of Illinois, 1814-1879. Revised and enlarged edition. Edited
by Franklin William ScotL CIV and 610 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1910.

'Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. VII. Executive Series, Vol. II. Governors'
Letter Books. 18401853. Edited by Evarts Boutell Greene and Charles Manfred
Thompson. CXVIII and 469 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1911.

'Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. VIII. Virginia Series, Vol. III. George
Rogers Clark Papers, 1771-1781. Edited with introduction and notes by James Alton
James. CLXVII and 715 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1912.

'Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. IX. Bibliographical Series, Vol. II. Travel
and Description, 1765-1865. By Solon Justus Buck. 514 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1914.

431

Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. X. British Series, Vol. I. The Critical Period,
1763-1765. Edited with introduction and notes by Clarence Walworth Alvord and
Clarence Edwin Carter. LVII and 597 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1915.

Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. XI. British Series, Vol. II. The New Re-
gime, 1765-1767. Edited with introduction and notes by Clarence Walworth Alvord
and Clarence Edwn Carter. XXVIII and 700 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1916.

Illinois Historical Collections, Vol XII. Bibliographical Series, Vol. III. The
County Archives of the State of Illinois. By Theodore Calvin Pease. CXLI and 730
pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1915.

Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. XIII. Constitutional Series, Vol. I. Illinois
Constitutions. Edited by Emil Joseph VerUe. 231 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1919.

Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. XIV. Constitutional Series, Vol. II. The
Constitutional Debates of 1847. Edited with introduction and notes by Arthur Charles
Cole, XV and 1018 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1919.

Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. XV. Biographical Series, Vol. I. Life of
Governor Edward Coles. By E. B. Washbume. Edited with introduction and notes
by Clarence Walworth Alvord. 435 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, III., 1920.

*BuUetin of the Illinois State Historical Library, Vol. I, No. 1, September, 1905.
Illinois in the Eighteenth Century. By Clarence Walworth Alvord. 38 pp. 8 vo.
Springfield, 1905.

•Bulletin of the Illinois State Historical Library, Vol. I, No. 2. June 1, 1906.
Laws of the Territory of Illinois, 1809-1811. Edited by Clarence Walworth Alvord.
34 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1906.

'Circular Illinois State Historical Library, Vol. I, No. 1. November, 1905. An
Outline for the Study of Illinois State History. Compiled by Jessie Palmer Weber
and Georgia L. Osborne. 94 pp. 8 vo. Springfield, 1905.

•Publication No. 18. List of Genealogical Works in the Illinois State Historical
Library. Compiled by Georgia L. Osborne. 8 vo. Springfield, 1914.

•Publication No. 25. List of Genealogical Works in the Illinois State Historical
Library. Supplement to Publication No. 18. Compiled by Georgia L. Osborne. 8 vo.
Springfield, 1918.

Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Vol. I, No. 1. April, 1908, to
Vol. XIII, No. 3. October, 1920.

Journals out of print. Vols. I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, No. 1 of Vol. IX, No.
2 of Vol X.

Vol. 13 JANUARY, 1921 No. 4

JOURNAL

OF THE

Illinois State
Historical Society

Published Quarterly by the

Illinois State Historical Society

Springfield, Illinois

Entered at Washington, D. C. as Second Class Matter under Act of Consresa of July 16, 1894

accepted for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in section 1103,

Act of October 3, 1917, aothorized on July 3. 1918.

[Printed by authority of the State of Illinoia.]

SCHNEPP & BARNES, PRINTERS, SPRINGFIELD, IL
68191— 3M

JOUENAL

OF TBCE

ILLINOIS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Jessie Palmer Webee, Editor

Associate Editors:
Edward C. Page

Andrew Eussel H. W. Clendenin

George W. Smith

OFFICEES OF THE SOCIETY.

President
Dr. Otto L. Schmidt Chicago

Vice Presidents

George A. Lawrence Galesburg

L. Y. Sherman Springfield

Richard Yates Springfield

Ensley Moore Jacksonville

Directors
Edmund J. James, University of Illinois. .Urbana-Champaign

E. B. Greene, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Mrs. Jessie Palmer Weber Springfield

Charles H. Eammelkamp, President Illinois College

Jacksonville

George W. Smith, Southern Elinois State Normal University

Carbondale

Orrin N. Carter Chicago

Richard V. Carpenter Belvidere

Edward C. Page, Northern Illinois State Normal School

DeKalb

Andrew Russel Jacksonville

Walter Colyer Albion

James A. James, Northwestern University Evanston

H. W. Clendenin Springfield

Clinton L. Conkling Springfield

John H. Hauberg Rock Island

Secretary and Treasurer
Mrs. Jessie Palmer Weber Springfield

Assistant Secretary
Miss Georgia L. Osborne Springfield

Honorary Vice Presidents
The Presidents of Local Historical Societies

CONTENTS.

I. Officers of the Society V

II. An Appeal to the Historical Society and the Gen-
eral Public IX

in. W. A. Eichardson, Jr.,

"Dr. David Nelson and his Times" 433

IV. Dnane Mowry,

"Robert T. Lincoln and Senator James Doo-
little, Political and Historical Letter" 464

V. Cynthia J. Capron,

"The Indian War of 1876, from letters of Lieut.
Thaddeus H. Capron" 476

VI. Clare McKenzie,

Congregational Church, Toulon, Illinois, 1846-
1921 504

Vn. William E. Sandham,

"Two Pioneer Doctors of Stark County, Illi-
nois" 538

VTII. Morgan County Soldiers ' Monument Dedicated . . 545

IX. Editorials

Illinois Day Observed 559

Medill School Journalism 562

New Monument over Grave of Ann Rutledge . . 567

Armistice Day Observance 569

Captain George Wellington Streeter 571

Indian Fellowship League 574

Minor Notices 575

Gifts of Books, Letters, Pictures and Manu-
scripts to the Illinois State Historical Li-
brary and Society 587

vii

VUl

X. Necrology

Judge Walter B. Douglas 595

Major Robert Wilsou McClaugliry 598

Benjamin Franklin Harris 611

Thomas Jefferson Pitner 613

Stephen G. Paddock 619

XL List of Publications of the Illinois State Histori-
cal Library and Societj^ 626

AN APPEAL TO THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY AND THE
GENERAL PUBLIC.

Objects of Collection Desired by the Illinois State Historical
Library and Society.

{Members please read tlus letter.)

Books and pamphlets on American history, biography,
and genealogy, particularly those relating to the West ; works
on Indian tribes, and American archaeology and ethnology;
reports of societies and institutions of every kind, educational,
economic, social, political, cooperative, fraternal, statistical,
industrial, charitable ; scientific publications of states or socie-
ties ; books or pamphlets relating to all wars iu which Illinois
has taken part, especially the collection of material relating to
the recent great war, and the wars wdth the Indians; pri-
vately printed works ; newspapers ; maps and charts ; engrav-
ings ; photographs ; autographs ; coins ; antiquities ; encyclo-
pedias, dictionaries, and bibliographical works. Especially
do we desire —

EVERYTHING RELATING TO ILLINOIS.

2. Manuscripts; narratives of the pioneers of Illinois;
origiaal papers on the early history and settlement of the
territory; adventures and conflicts during the early settle-
ment, the Indian troubles, or the great rebellion, or other
wars; biographies of the pioneers; prominent citizens and
public men of every county, either living or deceased, together
with their portraits and autographs; a sketch of the settle-
ments of every township, village and neighborhood in the
State, with the names of the first settlers. We solicit articles
on every subject connected with Illinois history.

3. City ordinances, proceedings of mayor and council;
reports of committees of council ; pamphlets or papers of any
kind printed by authority of the city; reports of boards of
trade and commercial associations; maps of cities and plats
of town sites or of additions thereto.

4. Pamphlets of all kinds; annual reports of societies;
sermons or addresses delivered in the State; minutes of
church conventions, synods, or other ecclesiastical bodies of
Illinois; political addresses; railroad reports; all such,
whether published in pamphlet or newspaper.

5. Catalogues and reports of colleges and other insti-
tutions of learning; annual or other reports of school boards,
school superintendents and school committees, educational
pamphlets, programs and papers of every kind, no matter
how small or apparently unimportant.

7. Files of Illinois newspapers and magazines, especially
complete volumes of past j^ears, or single numbers even. Pub-
lishers are earnestly requested to contribute their publica-
tions regularly, all of which will be carefully preserved and
bound.

9. Curiosities of all kinds ; coins, medals, paintings, por-
traits, engravings ; statuary ; war relics ; autograph letters of
distinguished persons, etc.

It is important that the work of collecting historical ma-
terial in regard to the part taken by Illinois in the great war
be done immediately, before important local material be lost
or destroyed.

In brief everything that, by the most liberal' construc-
tion, can illustrate the history of Illinois, its early settlement,
its progress, or present condition. All will be of interest to
succeeding generations. Contributions will be credited to the
donors in the published reports of the Library and Society,
and will be carefully preserved in the Statehouse as the prop-
erty of the State, for the use and benefit of the people for all
time.

Your attention is called to the important duty of collect-
ing and preserving everything relating to the part taken by
the State of Illinois in the great World War.

Communications or gifts may be addressed to the
Librarian and Secretary.

(Mrs.) Jessie Palmer Weber.

111;. I>A\II> XKI.Si >x.

DR. DAVID NELSON AND HIS TIMES.

By W1L1.1AM A. RicHAEDsoN, Jr.

Of all the men of mark who have lived and labored among
lis, Dr. David Nelson seems to be the one we have selected
to first acquaint the newcomer with our notabilities. We
begin by asking if he or she is familiar with the old hymn
"Just Before The Shining Shore." If an acquaintance is
shown, we launch forth with our story of how and when the
hymn was written by Dr. Nelson. No two of us tell the same
story, but we all stress the fact that the lights of Quincy,
as seen by the Doctor, a fugitive, from the Missouri side of
the Mississippi river, was the "Shining Shore," and inspired
the hymn. It is getting harder and harder in these degenerate
days, when the Bible is no longer read, really read, and hymns
are less familiarly known, to find people who are familiar
wdth this old hymn that has been sung around the world.
How we are to begin introducing our notabilities to the
stranger in the future I do not know.

For some reason Dr. Nelson's picturesque character has
always fascinated me, and I have often thought I would like to
try to reproduce the man, — his personality, his work, his in-
fluence. To this end, not long ago, I tried to gather data. I
found some, but in a fragmentary form. I wrote to everyone
I thought could help me, — descendants, relatives of former
scholars at the old Mission Institute, to one of the scholars,
a nonagenarian. But I got but little aid. I got letters with
the information that he wrote "Just Before The Shining
Shore," with, sometimes, a story of how and where it was
written.

Here is a short sketch of the Doctor's life that is taken
from the Library of Universal Knowledge: "Nelson, David,
1793-1844; born in Tennessee; graduated at Washington
college, Tennessee; studied medicine in Danville, Kentucky,
and in the Philadelphia medical school ; returned to Kentucky

433

434

at the age of nineteen, intending to practice his profession,
but the War of 1812 having commenced, he joined a Kentucky
regiment as a surgeon, and went to Canada. He resumed his
medical practice at Jonesborough, his native town. Relig-
iously educated, he had early made a profession of religion,
but while in the army he became an infidel. He soon, how-
ever, became convinced of the truth of the Bible, and deter-
mined to enter the ministry. He was licensed to preach in
April, 1825. He preached three years in Tennessee, and pub-
lished also at Rogersville the "Calvinistic Magazine." In
1828 he succeeded his brother Samuel as Pastor of the Presby-
terian church in Danville, Kentucky. In 1830 he removed to
Missouri and established Marion college, near Palmyra, of
which he was the first president. Earnestly advocating the
cause of emancipation he found it expedient to leave Missouri,
and in 1836 he removed to Illinois, where he established at
Oakland, near Quincy, a school for the education of young
men for the ministry. He exhausted his pecuniary means
and the institution failed."

Eev. James Grallaher, in answer to a letter from a friend
in the East, after first telling that he was bom and educated
in the same neighborhood, graduated at the same college,
licensed and ordained by the same presbytery and for many
years associated with him as co-editor of Calvinistic Magazine,
and fellow-laborer in preaching the gospel in the great and
growing West, — sajs that the parents of Dr. Nelson settled
in Washington county, Tennessee, at a very early date in its
history; that his father, Henry Nelson, was for many years
of his life a ruling elder in the Presbyterian church ; that his
mother's maiden name was Kelsey; and that her family stood
high for intelligence and respectability. Mr. Gallaher says
that in his and Dr. Nelson's youth, no man left his house
without his rifle and weapons of defense; that farmers went
in companies to plant and cultivate the fields, two or three
standing guard at different points; and that when they met
for public worship the same precaution was taken to guard
against being surprised by the Indians. He says: ''Although
the Indians were hostile a number of pious families had asso-
ciated together and formed a Christian church." Their
preacher was Rev. Samuel Dosk, a graduate of Princeton col-

435

lege, who founded at an eaiij- day a literary institution, known
at first as Martin Academy, but ultimately as Washington
college. Mr. Gallagher leaves this dark, unpleasant picture
as evidence, apparently, of the •efficacy of prayer: "The first
time I remember to have seen Dr. Nelson after his return
from the army, he was hurrying along the streets of Jones-
borough with a naked dirk in his hand, the veiy image of a
reckless desperado. There had been a street fight in tlie vil-
lage and Nelson was in the midst of it, apparently highly
entertained and ready to act his part. At this period, his
mother was much engaged in prayer in his behalf. She was
a woman of deep piety. I saw and conversed with her often
about this time. She had, in her heart, set aside this son,
from his childhood, for the service of God in the ministry.
She lived to receive an answer of peace. Her son regarded
himself, while he lived as a brand plucked fi'om the burning
in answer to the prayers of a mother."

I do not think that Mr. Gallaher intended, with his story,
to leave the impression that Dr. Nelson was a drink fiend,
for, later on in his letter, he tells his correspondent that the
Doctor never drank; that he reproved others for doing so,
etc. The only other inference is that he was a devil-possessed
Infidel. It seems to me that the Doctor and those who sketch
his life play-up the infidel feature more than the facts war-
rant. Dr. Nelson's infidelity seems to have been more of a
])ose or aifectation than a con^■iction. I am going to let the
Doctor tell what I mean. I quote from his "Cause and Cure
of Infidelity": "I had*not been brought to embrace infidelity
by pursuing the writings of the unbelievers. * * My
parents Avere professors of religion, with a plain education,
but well informed in holy things. * * * I never remember
to have heard the tioith of inspiration questioned until the
age of sixteen; when, having passed through the usual col-
lege course, I went to read medicine in Danville, Kentucky.
As soon as I mixed with society I entered the company of
some of the admirers of the French philosophy. They seemed
to believe that in disregarding inspiration there was some-
thing peculiarly original and lofty. Their remarks impressed
me, but not deeply. That their sarcasm and jeers infhienced
me towards infidelitv Avas because men love darkness more

436

than light; for their arguments were so destitute of fact,
ignorant as I was, I could sometimes see that they in reality
favored the otherside. I had some longing after the character
of singular intellectual independence and some leaning toward
the dignified mien; but I did not assume either as yet, for
my habits of morality remained and my reverence for superior
age and deeper research. It was necessaiy that I should re-
ceive praise from some source before all diffidence or mod-
esty should be swallowed up in self esteem. And this intoxi-
cating poison was not wanted. ' ' Then the Doctor tells of his
service in the army as surgeon, first on the Northern Lakes
and afterwards at Mobile. He says that at Mobile he became
acquainted with many officers of the regular army; ''whose
intimacy was not calculated to lead him toward God. ' ' Under
such influences, the Doctor says he advanced rapidly in un-
belief. He goes on to say that he was a Deist, but moving
on to Atheism, — when he was mercifully arrested. The Doctor
says that, up to this time, he had not read a volume of the
unbelievers production; when, casually, Voltaire's Philoso-
phical Dictionary was loaned him. He found in it not one
fair argument, one truth unmixed with a lie. He sought
other books, but they were all mixtures of hatred and untruth.
I quote the Doctor: "About this time, when passing from
place to place, it was not an uncommon night's occurrence to
meet in a circle around the tavern fire and before the evening
passed to hear remarks on Christianity. I listened and the
objections were all of the same class as those I had been read-
ing, or weaker. * * * They would take some case of crime
recorded in the Bible, name it, repeat it, and place it in differ-
ent attitudes with unusual delight. * * * Being the son of
an old praying man, who had compelled me to hear the book
he loved read twice every day, I do not remember that I ever
laughed in the midst of our hilarity." Then he goes on to
say: "Strange to tell, these facts, these discoveries, and even
these feelings had no further influence upon me than to streng-
then my resolve to read further and examine my old doubts
more accurately." Dr. Eose says that Dr. Nelson heard a
sermon by Dr. Elias Cornelius of the American Board, about
this time, which "fired his heart with love for the souls of
men." Mr. Maaroun thou.o-ht it was Eev. Jeremiah Evarts

437

who uncovered for him the "first tablet of the law." Any-
way, he was converted, studied theology, probably under the
noted Gideon Blackburn, was licensed to preach, and occu-
pied pulpits in the Presbyterian churches at Jonesborough,
Tennessee, and Danville, Kentucky.

Now, camp-meetings began among Presbyterians in Ken-
tucky at Cane Ridge about the year 1800, and there was a
great religious revival that swept over Kentucky and Tennes-
see at the beginning of the 19th Century; so great that the
demand for an additional number of ministers in that region
led the Presbytery of Cumberland to license and ordain a
number of young men, who had not received the required
classical and theological training for the gospel ministry.
And yet Dr. Nelson seems to have met only Infidels, — self-
complacent, smartish young free- thinkers, — with their un-
critical criticism of the Bible.

About the year 1829, Dr. Nelson emigrated from Ken-
tucky to Marion County, Missouri, and settled in what is now
Union Township, about thirteen miles northwest of Palmyra.
The location was on the border of the frontier settlements.
The land was unentered beyond. Not long after coming. Dr.
Nelson conceived the idea of establishing a college for the
education of young men for the ministrj^ This was to be
accomplished by the manual labor system, each student work-
ing so many hours each day to pay for his board and tuition.
Associated with him were Dr. David Clark and Mr. William
Muldrow. On January 15, 1831, a charter for Marion College
was granted them. Dr. Nelson was chosen the first president.
The friends of the institution, who were chiefly members of
the Presbyterian church, contributed to the extent of their
ability to give the college a start. Mr. Muldrow, as agent,
visited the East in the interest of the institution. He was
successful, and made other trips with equal success. William
Muldrow was a remarkable man, — he built Marion City and
the first bit of railroad west of the Mississippi, so it is claimed.
"In his plausible yet forcible language," Mr. Muldrow
described the advantages presented by Marion County of
that day, — the vast area of unappropriated lands which were
to be had for $1.25 per acre. The Eastern gentlemen not

438

ouh' gave liberally to the support of Mariou College, but they
invested in the "wild lands" as they were called.

"In 1836 a large tract of land was entered by the Trus-
tees of Marion College, with funds raised in the East, on
which to erect a preparatory department to qualify students
to enter the college proper. The jDreparatory or 'Lower Col-
lege' tract was located about twelve miles southeast of the
'Upper College,' and six miles southwest of Palmyra. Eev.
Ezra Stiles Ely, of Philadelphia, was placed in charge of
the Lower College. The faculties of both schools were chiefly
divines from the East, induced to emigrate by ^Ir. Muldrow.
The}' were men of learning, of high character, and of rigid
morality. They were, also, for the most jDart, men of means
and not averse to adding to their possessions by legitimate
speculation and honest investment. Dr. Ely brought with
him about one hundred thousand dollars, all of which he
invested."

I have culled the above from the E. F. Perkins' History
of Marion County. He goes on to say: "Perhaps the college
would have flourished for an indefinite period, but for the
opinions of Dr. Nelson and others on the subject of slavery.
* * * The anti-abolition crusade of 1835-36 brought matters
to a crisis."

Dr. Xelson lived at Jonesborough, Tennessee, during the
years from 1820 to 1824, when Elihu Embree and Benjamin
Lundy were iDublishing anti-slavery papers there; and yet he
took his Negro slaves from Tennessee to Kentucky and
from Kentucky to Missouri. AVhat had happened in the mean-
time? And, again, if Lundy was permitted to publish his
"Genius of Universal Emancipation" at Jonesborough and
Baltimore and Washington, what had made the slaveholders
of i\Iissouri so sensitive to anti-slavery opinion and so intol-
erant?

In order to tiy to answer these questions and try to
understand the epoch it is necessary, in as short a manner
as I can, to review the slaveiy question up to 1836.

The thirties of the 19th Century w'as a most restless,
active, progressive decade. It was during this decade that
railways began to be built, w'hich brought a vast number of
immigrants to the United States to build them. Steamboats

.430

greatly increased in number and size to take care of the im-
mense and increasing- traffic upon tlie Oliio and Mississippi
rivers. At this time tlie cultivation of cotton was increasing
in the Western Gulf States of the South, and slaves, in fear
of being sold ' ' down the river, ' ' as they expressed it, followed
the North Star to Canada in inci'easing numbers. At this
time, also, the stream of emigrants from the East into Ohio,
Indiana, and Illinois increased greatly in size. A telegraph
line was established in England in 1835. In 1837, Sir Rowland
Hill published a pamphlet recommending a low and uniform
rate of ijostage. and in 1840 his principle was established by
law. In 1830, France deposed her Bourbon king, Charles X.,
and established a constitutional monarchy. In 1832 the En-
glish Reform Bill was passed, Avhich gave the middle class
a right to take part in their Govennnent. Then came the
repeal of the laws granting special privileges to the upper
class. At this time the brutal treatment of women and chil-
dren in the mines, factories and other occupations, the savage
criminal laws and iDunishments, and the inhuman treatment
of lunatics began to shock people. Investigations began, and
reforms followed. This was the time of organized voluntary
effort to help the helpless, relieve suffering, and to raise the
fallen. It was then that the public school system began in
England, and tlie heavy tax was taken off of the newspapers.
In 1833, England emancipated the slaves in all her colonies.

Some say this was the old Puritan leaven at woi'k. If so
it was a humairized Puritanism. Some say that it came from
tlie stirrings that the French revolution had planted in men's
hearts. Wherever it came from and to whatever due it was
during the much-abused Pre and Early Victorian Age, with
its excess of sentiment, it may be, that the English found ;>
public conscience.

Did none of this stirring of conscience this "heart inter-
est," find its way to the United States? Yes, and to almost
all parts of the Westeni civilized world. It would seem
strange, nay, marvelous, if the iniquity of slavery should
escape all this humane searching of the conscience !

Slavery- existed in all the original thirteen Colonies,
though just before the Revolution most of their leading men
looked upon it as morally wrong, and some of the Qiiakers in

440

Pennsylvania were advocating emancipation. The Declara-
tion of Independence, with its ' ' rights of man, ' ' strengthened
this sentiment. As new Constitutions were adopted by the
Northern Colonies the slaves were freed, — slavery there
having been little more than a household institution, and the
Negro, with his shiftlessness, I suspect, was something of a
trial to the orderly, neat, trim New England housewife. When
Virginia ceded the Northwest Territory to all the Colonies she
devoted it to freedom and it was so dedicated by the Ordi-
nance of 1787. At the end of the War of Independence there
was a critical period of American history, and there was
great need for a strong central Government. When they came
to build a new Constitution they found that the people of the
Southern Colonies had had a harder time with their con-
science; that slavery was more profitable at the South than
it had been at the North ; and that concessions had to be made.
So, for the sake of a union, compromises were necessary.
But the Constitution prohibited the importation of African
slaves after the year 1808, — against the protests of the ship-
owners of Boston and other New England ports, who found
it profitable to "deal in wool and ivory," as the grim eupho-
nism of the day put it. It was thought that this prohibition,
with a quickened conscience and enlightened public opinion,
would ultimately cause the decay of slavery. Perhaps it
might have done so had not Eli Whitney invented his cotton-
gin in 1793. This machine so cheapened the preparation of
the cotton for the market that the raising of cotton became
the dominant industry of the lower South. Within five years
after "Whitney's invention cotton had displaced indigo as the
great Southern staple, and the slave States had become the
cotton field of the world. This development of the culture
of cotton was pregnant with consequences to both sections.
In the North, manufactures and commerce were developed.
In the South the price of slaves was constantly increasing.
Although the North had ceased to own and employ slaves, it
did not cease to approve of the use of slave labor in the
South. It participated in the gains of slavery. The cotton-
planter borrowed money at a high rate of interest from the
Northern capitalist. He bought his goods in the Northern
markets. He sent his cotton to the North for sale. The

441

Northern merchant made money at his hands, and was in no
haste to overthrow an institution with which his relations
were so agreeable. There was a great deal of human nature
on both sides ; a great many ' ' entangling alliances ' ' between
conscience and self-interest. Notwithstanding all this, in
1816, "The National Colonization Society" was organized at
Washington City, with Bushrod Washington as its president,
and the "African Eepository" as its organ. "Its expressed
object was to encourage emancipation by procuring a place
outside of the United States, preferably Africa, to which
negroes could be aided in emigrating. Its branches spread
into almost every State, and for fourteen years its organiza-
tion wamdy furthered by every philanthropist in the South
as well as the North, "Henry Clay, Charles Carroll and James
Madison, in the South were as heartily colonizationists as
Bishop Hopkins, Rufus King, William Henry Harrison and
Dr. Channing, in the North,

Then came the world movement, the time spirit, that
wrought so mightily in England. In 1831, William Lloyd
Garrison established "The Liberator" in Boston, demanding
immediate emancipation. The New England Anti-Slavery
Society was founded. Similar organizations sprang up in
other Northern States. In 1833 a small group of men and
women met in Philadelphia to establish the American Anti-
Slavery Society. In a few years hundreds of anti-slavery
societies sprang up and more than five hundred thousand anti-
slavery documents had been distributed. Able and earnest
men, such as Theodore D. Weld and Samuel J. May traversed
the Northern States as the agents of the national society,
founding branches and lecturing on Abolition. On one of
Mr. Weld's trips Dr. Nelson heard him, espoused the cause,
and freed his slaves. It is said that nearly every person
noted after 1831 as an Abolitionists was before that year a
Colonizationist. This does not seem to have been the case
with Dr. Nelson. His conversion seems to have been as sudden
as that of Saul of Tarsus.

The result of all this was a storm of indignation from
the slaveholders. They declared that the Abolition literature
sent among them was incendiaiy and intended to excite in-
surrection among their slaves. The Nat Turner rebellion in

442

Virginia was tlien still fresh in their minds. They made
demands on the people of the Noi^th. They called for the
suppression of the Abolitionists and their work by public
opinion and by State action. Public feeling in the North was
already so bitter against the Abolitionists that it hardly
needed the impulse of the Southern demand. In nearly every
Northern State the work of putting down the Abolitionists
went on. Fifteen hundred influential names were signed to
a call for an anti-abolition meeting in Faneuil Hall. The
great orators of Boston addressed an excited multitude. In
1834. President Jackson, in his annual message, called at-
tention to "the fearful excitement produced in the South
by the attempts to circulate through the mails inflammatory
appeals addressed to the slaves.

This imperfect review will help, I hope, to show the
feverish condition of the country in the early thirties of the
19tli Century; the constant fear under which the slaveholders
lived of a negro insurrection; and Avhat happened in Marion
County. Missouri, in 1836 — in fact, an attempt to answer
our questions.

^Ir. Perkins, in his History of Marion County, says : "The
founding of Marion College, the laying out of ^Marion City
and the extraordinary efforts of Willian Muldrow, Dr. Ely,
and others, induced a large emigration from Pennsylvania,
Ohio and other Eastern and Northern States to the county,
and among the emigrants Avere many Abolitionists. Among
the emigrants who landed at Hannibal in May, 1836, were two
men, Williams and Garrett, who were emissaries of the anti-
slavery society. Among the effects of these men was a box
filled with tracts and pamphlets. Garrett and Williams had
settled in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, and here the box
had been conveyed. There was intense excitement throughout
the country. A company of ainned men was organized at
Palmyra, marched up to Philadelphia, made Garrett and Will-
iams ])risoners, and carried away the box." On the way back
to Palmyra, on the North river, the company halted. A hollow
s(]uare was formed, the prisoners in the center. Captain

443

Wrigiit addressed thcin, giving- them the choice of leaving
tlie State immediately or of being hung. They left the State.

Either this same body of men at this time or another
body under C'ai>tain Wright soon after, rode up to Dr Nelson's
house surrounded it, and demanded the Abolition papers they
understood vrere there. Dr. Nelson warned them not to enter
liis yard. Either they were more intent upon getting Garrett
and Williams, or for some other reason, they rode away wdth
a threat that thev would come again.

Soon after this, Sunday, May 22, 1836, Dr. John Bosely
was stabbed. I am going to let Dr. William Nelson, a son of
Dr. David Nelson, tell the story:

"Not long after the mob visited our house, father had an
appointment to preach on the camp-ground of his church, a
few miles from the college. It was Sunday and a lai-ge crowd
was there to hear him. After the sermon William Muldrow
presented him a colonization paper to be read. Father ob-
jected. He said he feared it would stir up the mob again.
But Muldrow reassured him, so father read it. Then a Dr.
Bosely rushed up to the pulpit with his cane raised to strike
father, but Muldrow rushed up to Bosely and told him that
he had had the paper read. Then Bosely struck at Muldrow,
but the cane was knocked to one side by Mr. Ringer. Mul-
drow taunted Bosely with some of his Kentucky histon'.
Bosely drew a spear from his cane and tried to run it through
[Muldrow, but Muldrow gralibed and broke it. Then Bo.«_ely
drew a pistol, pointed it at MuldroAv and snapped it twice.
Then iluldrow drew a knife and stabbed Bosely. A general
fight followed. Several men tied red handkerchiefs around
their waists, got on their horses and started to raise a mob.
Father started for home, but mother, who was frantic, per-
suaded him to start for Quincy. "

For three days, Dr. Nelson hid in the brush and traveled
by night, frequently seeing some of these red-handkerchieved
regulators pass along the road from his concealment. At
length he came to the river bank and, by some means, got a
message to friends in Quincy. Mr. Magoun says that during
his flight "he commenced his famous book, 'Cause and Cure of
Infidelity.' " "Hiding in the bushes," he says, "with the
Mississipi^i at the foot of the bluff, 'gliding swifty by,' and

444

'friends passing over' to and from a Free State, a safe land-
ing in which he could 'almost discover,' he also wrote, on the
back of letters, the Christian psalm, 'My days are gliding
swiftly by.' " He goes on: "Two Quincy church members
* * * at dusk paddled a 'dug-out' across the river and fished
in the slough. Learning by signs just where Dr. Nelson was
they let their boat float down toward the Missouri 'strand.'
With huge strides down came the fugitive evangelist and
college founder from his concealment. The slave-holder
scouts were foiled. Well out in the river, Dr. Nelson asked
if they had brought him anything to eat ? His days of tramp-
ing, hiding, hymn-making, praying, reflecting, when it was
unsafe to resort to a house, had well-nigh starved him.
'Something in the bag,' replied one of the brethren, rowing
with all his might. Diving into the bag, the brave but fam-
ished Tennessean brought up some dried codfish and crackers.
Laughing heartily he said: 'Well, I'm dependent on Yank-
ees, and shall have to be a Yankee after this, and I may as
well begin on crackers and codfish. ' ' '

Dr. Nelson landed safely and went to Eufus Brown's
old Log Cabin Hotel, where the Newcomb Hotel now stands.
Most exaggerated news of the affair at the camp-meeting ran
round the town. It was said that the Doctor had stabbed
Bosely. On the following day a number of persons from
Quincy with some from Missouri demanded that Dr. Nelsou
be given up. "A self-constituted committee of citizens of
Quincy waited upon the Doctor, protesting against his coming
here, and especially against his alleged purpose to remove
here with his family." Dr. William Nelson says: "Father
was sitting at the top of the stairs reading. Two members of
the mob were sent to take him * * * and when one of them
jDut his hand on father's shoulder, he looked up at him and
asked if he had legal papers. The man replied that they had
not, but would take him without them. Father was up, with
his chair raised above his head, and ordered them to go
down stairs immediately. They did so." "There had been
no legal claim made for him;" says General Tillson, "he had
committed no offense and he was protected. After a day or

445

two of vaporing the excitement died away." Muldrow was
placed in custody, afterward tried and acquitted, and Dr.
Bosely recovered from his wound ; but Dr. Nelson was never
allowed to come back to Missouri in peace. After Dr. Nelson
had lived in Illinois for some time some of the members of his
old church at Philadelphia invited him to preach for them
on a sacramental occasion. He agreed to do so, with the as-
surance that no reference should be made to Abolitionism.
But he was warned not to come. Hearing of the character
of the opposition he did not go. Connected with Marion
College from its birth to its death as members of the faculty
were'^Dr. Ezra Stiles Eh% Dr. "Wm. S. Potts, Dr. Hiram P.
Goodrich, Prof. Marks, Prof. McKee, Prof. Hays, Prof. Reach,
Prof. Blatchford, and Prof. Thompson. All these men were
Presbyterians at a time when Presbyteriansim and Aboli-
tionism were synonymous in Marion County; yet they were
allowed to live peaceful lives and they were respected by
their neighbors. Why was Dr. Nelson singled out for
hate? Rev. Asa Turner says "he did not attack slavei^y
publicly." He also says that he did not remember the
least crimination of any one by Dr. Nelson. And this
makes it all the more inexplicable.

Soon after Dr. Nelson came to Quincy "a notice appeared
in the Illinois Bounty Land Register, of June 10, 1836, for a
'county meeting' in the public square, on the 18th of June,
of all citizens of Adams County friendly to peace and good
order, and opposed to the introduction of Abolition Societies
and opposed to the discussion of the subject in the pulpit,"
according to Captain Asbury. He goes on to say that "the
Views expressed in this notice called for an article from the
pen of J. T. Holmes, px'inted in the Register June 15, 1836,
whilst declaring no connection with any Abolition Society, he
asserted the right of discussion." Rev. Asa Turner, after
saying that he warned his church authorities of the mischief
intended by this meeting, and of the preparation for meeting
it by putting loaded guns under the platform of the pulpit
of his church, the old "Lord's Bam," he says: "I was then
lecturing on Sabbath afternoons on Acts in course. The mob
at Ephesus was the subject for the Sabbath after. I felt that
Dr. Nelson should not bear the wrath of the people alone.

446

The house was full to hoar what I would say. I told tliem
what I thought of mobs and of slavery. * * * At that a pro-
slavery doctor cried out ' Presumptous ! ' Then the pro-slav-
ery wrath seemed to turn from Dr. Nelson to me. But they
concluded to take time and gather an organization strong-
en ougli to make victory sure. * * * They had not decided
what to do with me, but said I could not stay in Quincy. * * *
We were about to hold a two days' meeting, Saturday and
Sunday. Dr. Nelson was to preach Saturday. That day was
fixed upon for the deliverance of the town and county from
two such dangerous men, the hour of public worship the time.
On Saturda)^ people from all parts of the county flocked into
Quincy." Then follows an account of how Mr. J. T. Holmes,
a justice of the peace, went to the leaders and told them that
if there was a mob he would read the riot act and command
them, in the name of the State to disperse; and that if they
did not that bullets would follow; and that they would aim
at the leaders, as they kncAv who they were. Mr. Turner goes
on to say that "they passed some resolution versus Abolition;
drank a little too much, fought a little, and went home."
Saturday night, he said, was as quiet as Sunday.

Tradition has it that, after bringing his famih^ from
Missouri, Dr. Nelson lived in a house on the west side of
Fourth street a little south of where the Public Libraiy now
stands; and that here he finished his hymn "Just Before
the Shining Shore," and conunenced to Avork on his "Cause
and Cure of Infidelity."

Some authorities saj' that an Anti-Slavery society was
established in Quincy in 1836, and some say it was in 1837.
From all the above, I Avould judge there was such a society
here in 1836. Whenever it was established Dr. Nelson was a
member of it, if not the moving spirit.

On the 19th day of April, 1838, Edward B. Kimbajl and
wife conveyed on(^ hundred and eighty-five acres of land in
Sections 3 and -t of Melrose Township to Dr. Nelson. Ori
tlie south one hundred and five acres of this land Dr. Nelson
built him a house, where he lived and where he died. This

4:i7

farm home he called "Oakland." The old house is still stand-
ing, on the Burton road, aliout three miles east of 24th street.

On the 30th day of October, 1838, Dr. Nelson and wife
conveyed eighty acres off the north end of the above land
to Asa Turner, Jr., in trust for use and benefit of Mission
Institute Number First. The declaration of trust reads;
"Believing that some more etlicient and less expensive way
ought to be adopted to supply the world with an educated
Ministry of the Gospel than our common colleges and semin-
aries do at present afford, etc. Mr. Turner interpreted the
lawyer's phraseology in this deed to mean that there was to
be no tuition and that teachers were to support their families
by laboi', the students working for them portions of their time.

Mrs. Laura E. Cragin, Dr. Nelson's granddaughter,
thinks that there was a chapel and some twenty small log
cabins built out there for the students.

According to Mr. Turner, Dr. Nelson would go to the
timber with the students, and when tired with work wculd
sit down on a log and write his "Cause and Cure." It was
finished there under the shade of four large oaks.

"When men are thinking intensely on one ideal others
grow up aromid it," says the Centennial History of Illinois.
"Thus in 1839 a peace society at Mission Institute near
Quincy adopted a resolution declaring that wars promoted
for the glory of rulers were paid for by their subjects."

Mrs. Sarah D. <Hall) Herritt, in her book, "A Keep-
sake," says: "About 1838, Rev. David Nelson had matured
a plan for a literary institution, located near Quincy, Illinois.
The school Avas designed to favor self-reliant persons of both
sexes, who wished to devote themselves to the work of
missions. Rev. Moses Hunter, of Alleghany, New York, had
long been contemplating a project of this kind, and Avent
West for a suitable location. Reaching Quincy, Illinois, he
found Dr. Nelson on the ground, and already at work. After
com])aring notes, they decided to unite their efforts, and har-
monize on the plan as he found it. A few acres of land were
obtained two miles east of the river, where Mr. Hunter lo-
cated, and began to invite students. Dr. Nelson had lorcvi-

448

ously made a commencement five miles east of the river and
had a few students about him. ' '

On May, 28, 1840, Eufus Brown and wife conveyed to
Henry H. Snow, Edward B. Kimball, Eufus Brown, Willard
Keyes, and Moses Hunter two pieces of ground, one at what
is now 24th and Maine, containing a little over eleven acres,
and the other a forty acre tract, out among the sloughs, in
the southwest corner of Melrose Township — good for nothing
except as a landing place for run-away slaves from Missouri.
This land was conveyed to said parties in trust for Institute
No. 4 — in another part of the deed called "Mission Institute."
"Institute Number First" was out somewhere near the Ter-
wische Woods on Broadway. Where Institutes 2 and 3 were,
or were to be, I do not know.

The Institute land was forty rods wide and extended,
practically, from what is now High street to Madison Park,
then a cemetery. Dr. Nelson went East and raised funds for
the new enterprise. The tract was surveyed and platted.
What is now 25th street was opened through the tract Avith
cross lanes opening from it, so that all parts of it were ac-
cessible. These roads and lanes were given names by some
one acquainted with the Bible, I am told. The part between
High street and the cemetery and 24th and 25th streets was
set apart for college purposes, as was a lot north of High
and west of 25th, where a chapel was built. The north part
of the college ground was left as a campus. What college
buildings there were, were on the south part of this ground.
Some say there was a two-story brick building, used for re-
citation purposes only, on this ground. Some say there was
also a good sized frame building that was used as a boarding
house — for rooms and meals. Some say that the students
were cared for in "lodges." Most people say the brick build-
ing was small. Mr. Walter Hubbard, who lived in that neigh-
borhood when he was a boj^, says it Avas three stories high,
eight rooms to a story, and had a flat-roof. Mr. Hunter
bought the land north of the chapel out to Broadway, and
built him a home at what would now be 25th and Vermont,
facing the house east. The rest of the Institute land, on the
east side of 25th street, was diAT-ded into small lots, mostly
acre lots, and sold; and the OA\Tiers of property in the neigh-

449

borhood did tlie same. If there were student lodges they were
put up by the owners of these lots, or on what I have called
the "campus" — for all the rest of the land in the neighbor-
hood was sold to individuals. James E. Burr was the only
student who bought land.

' ' The Institute, " as it was called, and this part of Quincy
is still called — in some of the early deeds "The Theo-
polis Mission Listitute" — was soon knowTi as a nest of Aboli-
tionists. Such men as Evan Williams, the man who was run
out of Missouri in 1836, John K. Vandom, James E. Furness,
Edward B. Kimball, Dr. Eichard Eells, Eufus Brown, Orin
Kendall, Elijah Griswold, William Stoby, Alanson Work,
James E. Burr, and others, bought property and built them-
selves homes or houses to rent.

At this time most men considered themselves insulted if
they were called Abolitionists. Even Elijah P. Lovejoy, just
before he was killed at Alton, in 1837, while declaring him-
self in favor of gradual emancipation, disclaimed the name
Abolitionist. But these men at the "Institute" gloried in the
name. And even most avowed Abolitionists, imbued as they
were with respect for the law, did not care to entice slaves
from their masters or serve as guides in their first steps of
escape. Dr. Nelson was not only an avowed Abolitionist,
but he justified his violation of the law of his State and Nation
in abducting slaves from their masters by an appeal to the
"Higher Law." Under the obligations of the Constitution
the act of harboring and secreting slaves was made illegal.
Because of the danger of detection the Underground Railway
developed. Soon after 1835 the process was well established.
In 1839, the first known fugitive was dispatched from Chicago
to Canada. Through the efforts of Dr. Nelson, Quincy was
made a point of entrance for slaves in the years 1839-40. By
1840, the practice of harboring and secreting slaves was
widespread. Three great Underground Railway lines, with
their terminals upon the Mississippi river and Lake Michigan,
were established across the State of Illinois. One started at
Chester, another at Alton, and the other at Quincy. The

450

Quiiicv line followed siibstantiallv the route of the C. B.
& Q. Ky.

From this time on handbills offering large reAvards for
the recovery of slaves, and notices in newspapers that negroes
were committed to jail as run-away slaves, particularly de-
scribing them, and requiring the owner to come, prove his
property, pay his charges, and take the man or woman away,
were to be seen.

In 1840, the Liberty party was in the field with a ticket
headed by Birney and Lamoyne. The State Anti-Slavery
Society of Illinois, in convention at Princeton, decided on a
course of neutrality; but the men in favor of a third party
held a separate meeting, under the leadership of Dr. Nelson,
and agreed to supjiort the Liberty candidates. The result
was a vote of one hundred and fifty-seven. The center of the
agitation was in Adams County, which gave forty-two votes.
In 1840, Dr. Nelson laid the foundation stone of the
Presbyterian church here. On March 4th, 1840 the society
called Eev. J. J. Marks of Marion count}^ Missouri as its
first i^astor. Mr. Marks was a professor in the Marion Col-
lege when Dr. Nelson was its president.

Another professor of Marion College came here about
this time — Professor Blatchford. Mr. Blatchford bought the
old Whitney place and called it "Ilazeldean," or "Hazeldell."
General Singleton bought it of Mr. Blatchford and called
it "Boscobel. "

On the 12th day of July, 1841, Alanson Work, James E.
Burr, and George Thompson, three young men from the "In-
stitute," crossed the Mississippi river into Missouri to free
some slaves. They were apprehended, carried to Palmyra,
indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced to twelve years im-
prisonment in the Missouri penitentiary at Jefferson City.
Writers of Illinois history say that Dr. Nelson instigated these
young men to attempt this act. Perhaps he did. If not di-
rectly then by example. However the Mission Institute
smarted under the charge that it had instigated or had any-
thing to do with it. It went to some pains to say that Mr.
AVork was not connected with the Institution in any way.

It is said that in 1841 there Avas no law in Missouri to
punish an attempt to entice slaves away from their masters.

451

At that day the testimony of a slave was not allowed against
a white man, and as most of the important testimony against
the "liberators" was the statements of the slaves made to
their masters, and by them given in evidence on the trial,
it was sought by the prisoners counsel, Samuel T. Glover,
Uriel Wright and Calvin A. Warren, to exclude this testi-
mony. Mr. Samuel T. Glover was a brother of our Col. John
M. Glover. Calvin A. Warren was our well-known citizen.
John M. Clemens, father of "Mark Twain," was one of the
jurymen. The trial attracted large crowds, that sometimes
grew excited and threatened to take the prisoners out and
hang them. These yoiing men were treated with contempt by
their fellow prisoners while in the Marion county jail. Ac-
cording to the code of slave States "a nigger thief" was
worse than a "horse thief." While in jail they wei'e com-
pelled to hear, so loudly was it spoken on the street, that if
they were cleared on technicalities of law that "Judge Lynch
would take care of them. ' '

The Perkins History of Marion County says ' ' Our people
continued to be greatly troubled by the Abolitionists. During
1842 numerous raids were made upon the slave cabins by the
Illinois "Liberators," and many valuable slaves were induced
to escape. * * * In September, Dr. Eells, a prominent Aboli-
tionist of Quincy, was arrested in the very act of spiriting
away a negro. * * * Anti-abolition meetings were held in
Marion, Lewis and Balls counties, and strong denunciatory
resolutions were adopted. Even Quincy held a meeting this
year and denounced the Abolitionists in the severest terms.
This meeting was presided over by W. G. Flood. A com-
mittee on resolutions was com])osed of Isaac N. Morris, Dr.
J. N. Ralston, Samuel Holmes, C. K. Bacon and Dr. H. Rogers.
The meeting was addressed by Hon. 0. H. Browning."

Slaveholders had much to annoy and anger tliem. There
were many good, kind, humane men who owned slaves; but,
as Mr. Lincoln said, no one is good enough to own another.

I have always heard of the "Burning of the Institute,"
and have always thought all the Institute buildings went up

452

in the flames. The Quincy Whig, of March 16, 1843, gave
the following account:

"Incendiary: At about 3 o'clock, a. m., on the night of
the 8th instant, the chajDel at Mission Institute (Theopolis)
was discovered to be on fire. Alarm was instantly given, but
the house was so envolved by the fire that it was impossible
to save it. * * * The exercises of the institution had been
suspended for the week, to attend a protracted meeting in
Quincy. No fire had been made for five daj^s past in the
chapel. A light snow having fallen in the night, the in-
cendiaries were I'eadily tracked from the scene of their mid-
night work to the vicinity of the mills in the upper part of
the city and so on to the river toward the Missouri shore;
from which the inference is drawn that the incendiaries were
from the other side of the river.

"Such acts as described above betray a horrible state
of society indeed. The abolitionists decoy the slaves from
their masters in Missouri and run them off, and the Mis-
sourians retaliate by burning down the property of the aboli-
tionists. How long will such a state of things continue? As
long as the practice is continued by the abolitionists of prey-
ing upon the property of the people of Missouri."

"There was an intensely hostile feeling on the part of
the pro-slavery people of this county and of this part of
Missouri against the Illinois abolitionists," says the Perkins
History of Marion County. "The latter were continually
throwing fire-brands into the communities of their Missouri
neighbors and keeping our people in a state of constant irri-
tation and apprehension. * * * When it was known that
"Nelson College," as it was called here, was to be built just
across the river, and that, in all probability, there would
emanate therefrom not only abolition ideas, but from time to
time practical abolitionists themselves, certain pro-slavery
men in this and Lewis county swore that the building should
never be completed. In the winter the weather was severe
and in March there was a good ice-bridge across the Missis-
sippi. One night a band of men set out from Ross 's grocery,
in Palmyra, for Quincy. In the crowd were some desperate
men and hard cases, but there were also some respectable and
prominent citizens. The college was burned without much

453

difficulty 01- resistance, and the party returned in safety to
their Missouri homes. No attempt was ever made to arrest
any of them. The act was generally indorsed by the pro-
slavery people of the county as only a fair retaliation for the
acts of the abolitionists in spiriting away the slaves. ' '

Doctor Nelson died on the 17th of October, 1844, and, as
General Tillson says, gradually after this time, "the estrange-
ment over the slavery question between the people on two
sides of the river became allayed; was less talked of and
less thought of."

Eev. Moses Hunter died a few months after Dr. Nelson's
death.

On the 26th of February, 1845, by act of the Legislature
of Illinois, Asa Turaer, Jr., Warren Nichols, Adam Nichols,
Willard Keyes, Junius J. Marks and Orin Kendall, and their
successors, were constituted a body corporate and politic by
the name and style of the "Trustees of the Adelphia Theolog-
ical Seminary."

Under this name, with Professor Leonard in charge, the
old "Institute" struggled along until 1848. If later than that
it did not advertise in the Quincy papers.

January 17, 1855, Henry H. Snow, Edward B. Kimball,
Eufus Brown and Willard Keyes, after reciting that the deed
of May 28, 1840, creating them trustees for the use and benefit
of an Institution of Learning called Mission Institute No. 4,
provided that in case said Mission Institute ever became ex-
tinct, the premises or proceeds should go to the American
Board of Foreign Missions ; that in fact said Mission Institute
as a place of learning, by whatever name, had long since be-
come and is now extinct, conveyed the old Mission Institute
property to Jacob E. Hollowbush for eight hundred dollars,
who soon after sold it off in parts and parcels.

The old flat-roof brick building stood until about the
year 1868, when, after a Negro riot out there, it was torn

454

down. Mr. Walter Hubbard gives this account of the dis-
turbance :

"This old building was rented to some colored people.
They were endeavoring to hold a series of prayer meetings,
when a lot of negroes from town came out to raise a row
and have a dance. My father, Dr. Hubbard, had always taken
an interest in the welfare of the Institute, and when the
negroes from town began to raise a row, some of the resident
negroes came to father, who lived near, to get him to stop
the riot. He went and did stop it, and the town negroes
started away, w^hen some one ran after them and said that Dr.
Hubbard was not an officer, and to come back and kill him.
They came back, and came near doing so. He was severely
cut in many places. ' '

The large two-story frame building which stood on the
west side of 25th street, between what is now Maine and
Hampshire streets, which some say was used as a boarding
house during the days of the Mission Institute, and which
some say was built after the Institute ceased to exist, was
destroyed by fire to the great joy of the neighborhood, in the
later seventies or early eighties of the last century.

I have been unable to find a list of the teachers. Here
and there I have seen a name mentioned as a teacher, and
from this I make the following list :

Dr. Moses Hunter, Eev. Wm. P. Apthorp, Professor
Leonard, Rev. Anson J. Carter, and Miss Sarah D. Hall. I
cannot find that Dr. Nelson ever had anything to do with the
faeultj^ out there.

Captain Asbury says that Eev. Moses Hunter appeared
an old man when he first came here. He was said to possess
great knowledge and to be quite a superior man. He
dressed himself in a sort of seamless robe, in imitation of the

robe of Christ.

* * *

"What of Dr. Nelson — of the man and his ways ?

He was a large, powerful man. He was over six feet tall,
with broad shoulders and a thick chest. He had a large head
that was topped with a wealth of brown hair. Eev. Asa
Turner, "Father Turner," as he was called, tells of his first

455

meeting Dr. Nelson in 1831, at one of his camp-meetings, near
his home in Missouri, and describes the meeting :

"Around a hollow-square log shanties wei-e built for
temporary residence; within was a large shed covered with
split boards, a platform of the same, with a shelf in front —
'the stand.' The people assembled by the blowing of a horn.
There was an early prayer-meeting and preaching three times
a day. All was as orderly and quiet as any country congrega-
tion in New England." He goes on to say that the Doctor
had a voice of great power and melody, and that it was a
treat to hear him and Mr. Gallagher "sing the congregation
back to the stand, after an inter\^al in the worship."

"Dr. Nelson delighted much in preaching the gospel,"
says this same Mr. Gallagher. "This he regai'ded as God's
appointed instrument for renovating and saving men. * * *
He took a peculiar pleasure in preaching the gospel in desti-
tute places — the wayside inn, the mountain top, the field, the
grove, no place came amiss to him."

Mr. Gallagher goes on to say : "Some critic has remarked
that the Iliad of Homer is a picture rather than a poem; that
the scenes appear to stand out before the eye. * * * Such
was the preaching of Nelson. When he addressed an as-
sembly, you were a spectator rather than a hearer, and this
characteristic largely entered into his conversation."

"As a preacher," says Mr, Turner, "I always regarded
Dr. Nelson as one of the best. I never met a man who re-
garded the preaching of the gospel such an honor, such a
privilege. * * * j have heard him preach to infidels with
tears rolling down his cheeks, exhorting them to study the
evidence of the Christian faith. ' '

"He might suggest some choice thought at a prayer-
meeting," says another, "then say a few words about it at
some school-house, then preach about it on the Sabbath sev-
eral times at diflferent places, and thus brood over it for
weeks, and finally surprise and thrill a Boston audience with
eloquence and pathos."

"Before his conversion," says Mr. Gallagher, "he de-
lighted to revel amidst the gorgeous beauties of the English
classics. Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Montgomery,
Byron, and Scott were his chosen companions; but after his

456

mind and heart were turned to the Lord, Dr. Watts became his
favorite author.

' ' He could think as well sawing- logs or shaving shingles, ' '
says Mr. Turner, "as in the best study in the world, and it
was just as easy to arrange it on a log as in a rocking-chair."

Mr. Magoun says "he was a grand man, with a tender
heart and a gentle disposition, but firm as a rock when princi-
ples were at stake." He goes on to say that "Dr. Nelson had
no financial ability, no conception of the requisites of house-
hold comforts in the free North."

"I have seen Dr. Nelson," says another, "wearing a
soiled collar, a seedy coat, with a sleeve torn half-way to the
elbow." Others have seen him wearing a shoe and a boot.
Surel}' this is not in keeping with the conventional minister
of that day, with his top hat, standing collar, white tie, and
black broad-cloth suit.

What about Dr. Nelson's work?

One of his admirers says that "he had a great turn of
mind for poetical thought." He wrote "Just Before the Shin-
ing Shore," "Rest in Heaven," "A Fairer Land," and many
other hymns. He wrote "The Cause and Cure of Infidelity,"
and "Wealth and Honor." Nothing remains but the "old
sweet hymn," as Mr. Magoun calls it, and "The Cause and
Cure of Infidelity." This book went through several editions
in this country and in England. Dr. Nelson was widely knowTi
to the religious world of his day.

This book is divided into seventy chapters, and each
chapter is nothing more or less than a sermon. To begin
with, he asks this question: "If one of the causes of Infidelity
consists in ignorance, then is it hard for us to understand
the opposite of ignorance must be a promising remedy. We
mean ignorance of the Bible and of the ancient literature
connected with the Bible. ' ' His whole book is devoted to en-
lightenment. Here is a species of some of it:

"Go to the Universalist, and ask him if he hates God. He
is indignant at the question. He thinks he loves his kind
Creator ardently. And this is true that he does love a God
whose character resembles that of the man before you in

. 457

some i^rominent traits. But place before him the God of the
Bible — one who will say 'Depart' to the wicked * * *one
who will see the smoke of their torment ascend up for ever
and ever; and the Universalist will tell you he hates such
a God."

Dr. Nelson was a Presbyterian when Presbyterianism,
as far as doctrine is concerned, and Calvinism were synony-
mous. The five distinguishing features of the Calvinistic
doctrine are :

The absolute sovereignty of God in creation, providence
and redemption; the fall of man and his utter inability to
save himself from the consequences of his transgression ; the
election from the fallen race by the sovereign grace of God
of a certain number into eternal life ; the provision made for
Salvation in Jesus Christ ; their effectual calling by the Holy
Spirit; and their perseverance in divine grace assured by
the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Edward Eggleston, in one of his stories, makes a Hard
Shell Baptist preacher put the Calvanistic doctrine in a little
cruder form, but it comes out at about the same place :

"Ef you're elected, you'y be saved; ef you a'nt, you'l
be damned. God will take care of his elect. It's a sin to
run Sunday-schools, or temp'rince s 'cities, or to send mis-
sionaries. You let God's business alone. What's to be will
be, and you can't hender it."

In the Presbyterian churches one occasionally sees some-
tliing of this old Calvinistic doctrine in the hymns, but seldom
hears anything about it from the puli)it.

Dr. Nelson was a deductive thinker of the old type. He
followed his logic where it took him. He concealed nothing
he found revealed in the Bible. He offered no apology for
their earnest proclamation. But Dr. Nelson could not have
written and published his book in the 20th Century; or
if he had he could have gotten but little or no hearing among
Biblical scholars.

"There is something almost unfilial in the stolid indif-
ference with which we pass by old dogmas," says Henry
Dwight Sedgwick. "Earnest generations thought, pi*ayed,
yeai^ned over their interpretation of the meaning of life, and
fashioned dogmas which they believed would light the steps

458

of their children and their children's children to endless gen-
erations, yet we scarcely look to see what these dogmas

Now finally, what about Dr. Nelson's influence?

"The influence which the 'Mission Institute' exercised
was not the most fortunate for itself or for the city," says
General Tillson. "The original design was to establish a
school to educate and qualify young people for duty as
Christian missionaries in foreign lands. No purer idea could
have been generated, and its philanthropic purpose, aided by
the great prestige of Dr. Nelson's name as its founder and
patron, gave great promise at its beginning, but it labored
with limited means, its standard of scholarship was not of
the highest and many of its students were deficient in rudi-
mental acquirement. These causes operating upon the sensi-
tive public sentiment of the times and of the locality,
prevented it from obtaining the proper hold upon the public
sympathy, and it finally died out."

Against this estimate of the Mission Institute by General
Tillson I give one by Mrs. Sarah D. (Hall) Herritt:

"The death of these founders (Nelson and Hunter in
1844) occurred before a basis was formed. But as it was,
during the few years of its existence, it sent more laborers
than was ever done before under similar circumstances in
so short a time. Its representatives were sent to almost
every clime — New Zealand, Madeira, Africa, and to our
aborigines; besides the numbers who have given their life
service to our Home Mission work."

Who these scholars were Mrs. Herritt does not say.
From letters and books and conversations I find only the
following students at this old institution : George Thompson,
James E. Burr, Thomas Gamick, William Herritt, Samuel
Herritt, John Eendall, Miss Jane Ballard, afterwards Mrs.
John Kendall, and Miss Anna Ballard. Miss Anna Ballard is
living in California, wonderfully preserved in mind, body and
memory.

Still Dr. Nelson's threefold efforts to establish colleges
and schools were failures. Over at Philadelphia there are

459

some holes in the ground where once stood college buildings,
with stones and broken bricks in the pits, all overgro^vn with
weeds and brambles. Nothing remains of the efforts at "The
Institute," or at "Oakland," except the old residence. Up
to about eight years ago the cottage that was built by Alanson
Work, just north of the college grounds, and that was the
home of Henry Clay Work, the song writer, in his early youth,
was still standing. There is one, possibly two small
houses now standing that were there when Rev. Moses Hunter
walked the earth in his seamless robe. The Cause and Cure
of Infidelity is found only in old time collected libraries,
mostly in and around Quincy. The "one sweet hymn" is
gradually losing its place as hymnals are revised. Such is
only another instance of the impermanence of the works of
man.

Dr. Nelson was among the first Abolitionists of Illinois,
before the Lovejoys would admit that they belonged to
that despised sect. Some writers accord to Dr. Nelson more
credit for starting the anti-slavery movement here than to
the Lovejoys.

The Negro is free, but there is a school of thought that
deprecates the efforts of the Abolitionists to that end. Per-
haps the best expression of that thought has been given by
the late Colonel Roosevelt. I quote from his ' * Life of Thomas
H. Benton":

"The cause of the Abolitionists has had such a halo
shed around it by the after course of events, which they them-
selves in reality did very little to shape, that it has been
usual to speak of them with absurdly exaggerated praise.
Their courage, and for the most part their sincerity cannot
be too highly spoken of, but their share in abolishing slavery
was far less than has commonly been represented; any single
non-Abolitionist politician like Lincoln or Seward, did more
than all the professional Abolitionists combined to bring
about its destruction. The Abolition societies were only in
a very restricted degree the cause of the growing feeling in
the North against slavery; they are rather to be regarded as
themselves manifestations or accompaniments of that feeling.
The anti-slavery outburst in the Northern States over the
admission of Missouri took place a dozen years before there

460

was an Abolition society in existence; and the influence of
the professional Abolitionists upon the growth of the anti-
slaveiy sentiment as often as not merely warped and twisted
it out of proper shape, as when at one time they showed a
strong inclination to adopt disunion views, although it was
self-evident that by no possibility could slavery be abolished
unless the Union was preserved.

"When the Abolitionist movement started it was
avowedly designed to be cosmopolitan in character, the
originators looked down upon any merely national or patri-
otic feeling. This again deservedly took away from their
influence. In fact, it would have been most unfortunate had
the majority of the Northerners been from the beginning
in hearty accord with the Abolitionists ; at best it would have
resulted at that time in the disruption of the Union and the
perpetuation of Slavery."

It is true that there was a sudden blaze of anti-slavery
sentiment that broke out in 1820 at the time of the admission
of Missouri as a slave State, but the blaze died out to mere
embers, if not to ashes, as suddenly as it broke out. The
North accepted the Missouri Compromise as a settlement of
the slave question; as confining slavery within restricted
territory, which meant its ultimate extinction. Says James
G. Blaine: "The great political parties then dividing the
country accepted the result and for the next twenty years
no agitation of the slavery question appeared in any political
convention, or affected any considerate body of the people."
From 1820 conscience straggled with policy. Fear for the
stability of the Union, "which by this time had become of
general worship," pi-evailed. What agitation there was
concerned itself with the violation of the right of petition,
free speech, and free press. "Conscience, though drugged
by policy, had never entirely slumbered," says Goldwin
Smith. Among the Quakers of Pennsylvania it had remained
awake. In a certain sense, the founder of Abolitionism was
Benjamin Lundy, a Quaker. His circular was "the germ
of tlae entire anti-slavery movement," says Horace Greeley.
"Genius of Universal Emancipation" was the first Abolition-
ist paper. "The Abolitionists served to keep alive in the
Northern mind that secret trouble of Conscience about

461

slaveiy, which later, in a ripe political situation, was to
break out as a great force," says Carl Schurz.

You know that the Anti-Slavery society was composed
of two wings steadily and at last decisively divergent — the
political wing and the Garrisonian wing. The political wing
wanted the work carried on as other reform measures are.
The Garrison wing, which refused to vote, hold office or in
any way recognize a Government which in any way recog-
nized that there was such a thing as slaverj^, condemned the
Constitution and denounced the churches and ministers for
refusing to join the movement. If Colonel Roosevelt's stric-
tures had been confined to the Garrisonians I could have
agreed with him perfectly, for "the violence of this branch,
and even more the revolutionaiy and sometimes otTensive
social theories associated with it, made the others anxious
to part company. ' ' These others took the name of the Liberty
party. To this branch Dr. Nelson belonged. In 1840 they
nominated James G. Bimey for President and Francis J.
LaMoyne for Vice President. From this time, for twenty
years, politics revolved around the slavery question. Parties
came and went, Presidents were made and unmade by it.
In 1844, the Liberty party nominated James G. Bimey for
President and Thomas Morris, grandfather of our Thomas
Lucian Morris, for Vice President, and they were strong
enough to defeat Henry Clay, because of his equivocal
position on the annexation of Texas. Then came the annex-
ation of Texas, the Mexican war, the acquisition of a vast
territory in the West. Then, in 1848, the Free Soil party, the
successor of the Liberty party, was strong enough to defeat
Genei-al Cass and elect General Taylor. Then came the Clay
Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska bill, with its
repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the foiTQation of the Re-
publican party, the break of Senator Douglas \vith President
Buchanan, the division of the Democrat party into Northern
and Southern parts, the Douglas-Lincoln debate, the election
of Lincoln, the War of the States, the Emancipation Procla-
mation, and in Amendments to the Constitution.

The slavery problem is solved; but the race problem is
still with us — almost a harder problem to solve than the
slavery problem. There is now no fantastic, sentimental fus-

462

tian about ' * the new found brother. The brother is very badly
treated. He is not wanted any where. Values go off when
he moves into a neighborhood. He is not allowed to learn
a trade in the North, or follow it there if he has learned one
in the South. He is not allowed to vote in any State where
there is danger of his being in the majority, and this sup-
pression of his Constitutional right is justified in the name
of civilization. He is mobbed and harried in the North as
well as the South. And yet there are many refined, educated,
yes, cultured men and women with black skins. There are
many black men who could sit for the portrait that James
Lane Allen has painted in his ' ' Two Gentlemen of Kentucky. ' '

I have often wondered what would happen if the ''wild
men", the communists and Bolsheviki, ever grow in numbers
until they are a threatening menace. Will the black people,
with their wrongs rankling in their hearts, be for the old
order, or will they go over to the ' ' Reds ? "

We have to solve this problem, and solve it with justice;
ever remembering, with Montesquieu, that "an injustice to
one is a menace to all."

SHINING SHORE.
1.

My days are gliding swiftly by
And I a pilgrim stranger
Would not detain them as they fly
Those hours of toil and danger.

Chorus.
For oh, we stand on Jordan's strand
Our friends are passing over.
And just before, the shining shore
We may almost discover.

We'll gird our loins, my brethren dear,
Our distant home discerning:
Our absent Lord has left us word
Let every lamp be burning.

463

Chorus.

Should coming days be cold and dark
We need not cease our singing:
That perfect rest naught can molest
Where golden harps are ringing.

Chorus.

Let sorrow's rudest tempest blow

Each cord on earth to sever;

Our King says "Come" and there's our home

For ever oh, for ever!

ROBERT T. LINCOLN AND JAMES R. DOOLITTLE.

Interesting Political and Historical Letter from the
James R. Doolittle Private Correspondence.

Contributed by Duane Mowry, of Milwaukee, "Wis.

Introductory Note by the Contributor: Perhaps, the
correspondence which follows is almost self-explanatory.
And yet the letter in chief by Ex-Senator Doolittle uncovers,
as it seems to the contributor, a lofty and unselfish patriotism
which is altogether too rare among partisans of any and all
shades of political parties.

It is not so long ago when the distinguished son of the
great President Lincoln was in the political limelight. Many
of us still living distinctly remember that. And it was a
noble and worthy thought of the late Judge Doolittle to call
to the attention of Robert T. Lincoln the possibilities of the
Republican National Convention of 1884. And he felt, as
the personal and political friend and associate of the martyred
president, that he had a right, as well as an honest interest,
in so doing.

The letter to the son, Robert, may not have disclosed
great political foresight. Subsequent political events shows
that it did not. Nevertheless, there is much of real political
and historical interest in the letter, a letter, which Robert
is frank to say is "remarkable."

Some of the political judgments indicated by Judge
Doolittle may seem a bit harsh. And yet future historical
judgments have confirmed the correctness of most of them.
Mr. Doolittle knew men and measures of the civil war period
as few of us now living knew them. And he was perfectly
fearless in pronouncing his estimate of them and their place
in the history of the country.

He was incontestably right upon this question of re-
constniction following the close of the civil war. And his
intense hatred of the carpetbag regime in the South was
both pardonable and eminently just. A truer friend of the

464

465

country, both North and South, did not hold public oflBce
during this tiying period. And it did great honor to his
unselfish devotion to principle, that he preferred to lose cast
with his fellow citizens in his home state, Wisconsin, rather
than do violence to the behests of his conscience. But the
judgment of history has long since approved his stand on
the great national questions of that time.

It seems that Mr. Eobert T. Lincoln did not take the
subject of Mr. Doolittle's letter very seriously. And subse-
quent events seem to have justified Mr. Lincoln in that view.
But the fact remains that the letter is worthy of the man
and the occasion. And aside from that political fact, there
is historical interest in the letter, which should have the light
of day. And in that view, Mr. Robert Lincoln joins me.

(Private and Confidential) Chicago, 111., June 3rd, 1884.

Hon. Eobekt T. Lincoln.

My dear Sir:

My relations to your father were such, that although we
have only met upon the terms of ordinaiy friendship, I feel
authorized to speak in terms of the strictest confidence. You
may not be aware of the fact that in the National Committee
of 1860 at New York, I drew the call for the convention which
nominated him. At that time there was no Republican Party
in Pennsylvania or in New Jersey. There was a People's
Party in the former, and a Union Party in the latter. How
to bring them all together was the question. I drew a call
addressed to the Republicans of the several states, to the
members of the People's Party in Pennsylvania, and of the
Union Party of New Jersey. I presume in that committee,
of fifty persons nearly, including some wise counsellors with
the committee, I made twenty speeches, before I could get
it through their heads that if we did not invite Pennsylvania
and New Jersey, we might just as well have no convention
at all.

"What!" said they, "are we not Republicans? Will
you lower the flag?" My reply was, let us invite them to our
feast and present with the invitation the Bill of Fare. All

466

who are in favor of five things, naming them, and all who are
opposed to five other things, are invited to take part.

After an all night's struggle it was adopted. Right then
and there was victory organized. Pardon me if I refer to
something never published. I do so only to let you know
better the relations between your father and myself.

Before the Convention came off in 1860, the Hon. Preston
King, of New York, occupied rooms adjoining mine in Capitol
Hill. He was a devoted Seward man. The Blairs favored
Bates, of St. Louis. The discussions about the nominee were
frequent and earnest between King and myself. Again and
again, I pressed him for his second choice after it would
be found that Seward could not be nominated. While in
his stubborn and honest loyalty to his friend, Seward, his
constant reply was, "I have no second choice." I finally
gave to him my best judgment upon the result in advance.
Said I, "Mr. King, you will not nominate Seward. He has
been too much identified with abolitionists who think the
Constitution, as it stands, authorizes Congress to interfere
with slavery. The Higher Law doctrine will not be approved
by the Republican Party. Nor will Mr. Bates be nominated.
He comes from a state where his education has not been
enough in harmony with the masses of the Republican Party."

"But," I said, "there is Mr. Lincoln, of Hlinois. He
stands half way between the two, and he will, probably, be
the nominee. As Mr. Lincoln is from the West, the Vice
President will be from the East. As Mr. Lincoln is of Whig
antecedents, the Vice President must be of Democratic ante-
cedents. It would fall on you, Mr. King, if you would take
it. But I know you would not, for that would seem to make
you false to your friend, Seward. Therefore, the only man
who can fill the Bill will be Hamlin, of Maine. Lincoln and
Hamlin is probably to be our ticket."

All this talk was some two weeks before Mr. King came
on to the Convention, here.

I claim no gift of prophecy. It was simply a move of
reasoning or guessing, upon the political forces in operation.
Instinct, perhaps.

Again, in a very trying hour, when the disasters of the
war and the heavy drafts of soldiers and the burden of

467

taxes were pressing sore upon us, and there was a wide spread
opposition to your father's re-nomination in 1864, when the
Wades and Chandlers and Thad. Stevens had called a Bolt-
ing Convention and nominated Fremont at Cleveland; when
Governor Yates and Joe Medill and Senator Trumbull were
determined to throw him overboard, I was invited to speak at
a mass meeting of 20,000 at Springfield, at your father's
own home. Yates had a dinner party, and then it was re-
solved to set him aside, and Yates himself was chosen as the
orator to lead the movement.

He first addressed the meeting. In a long speech he
spoke of the affection and love for your father. "But and
if," and "if and but," there might be "a painful necessity
to choose some other standard bearer." I listened to that
speech for an hour or more, with my soul stirred and roused
nearer to the State of Inspiration than it ever was in before.
When he finished they called on me. My voice, though it
trembled with emotion, was still clear and reached every ear.
"Fellow citizens: I believe in God. Under Him, and, next
to Him, I believe in Abraham Lincoln." Those words broke
the conspiracy in Illinois. Such cheers and shouts you never
heard. Since the world began, there was never anything
like it. When I got through Yates arose and said, "The
people demand the re-election of Lincoln."

Now, you may ask why I should take the liberty of writ-
ing to you so long a personal letter. I will tell you frankly.
It is this :

After your father was assassinated, the Republican
Party, under Thad. Stevens and Stanton and others, was
revolutionized. Stevens had more power than even Robes-
pierre in the French Convention, with the men who followed
him, and boldly avowed that we were "outside" the Con-
stitution in dealing with States south of the Potomac. His
great genius, iron will, intense hate, inflamed by the destruc-
tion of his iron works by the rebels, and inflamed by his
interior life, and the sense of moral degradation which came
from his living in open shame with the wife of a negro barber,
whom he had stolen from Harrisburg, and which made him
wish to drag down to his own disgusting amalgamating con-
dition the people of the South, made him in that hour of

468

madness, when "judgment fled to brutish beasts and men lost
their reason," a terrible despot and most tyrannical leader
of the revolution inside the Republican Party. His great
genius, his great passions, his intensity of hate, all flamed up,
and blazed and burned like an electric light, and the lesser
gas lights flickering around him, could hardly be seen, as
moon and stars go out of sight in the blazing sun of midday.

As long as Stevens lived, he kept the party outside the
Constitution. During that period, the crimes of that party
against the Constitution are too terrible to be recounted.
They made war on ten States ; Aye ! two years after peace and
amnesty had been declared, they did what the Rebellion could
not do, namely: They dissolved the Union by expelling ten
States. They, "with a steel pen made of a bayonet," (to
quote Garfield), erased the names of ten States in this Union,
and wrote in their places "Five Military Provinces." They
erased from the Constitution the sacred words, "Habeas
Corpus," "the right of trial by jury;" and wrote in their
places. Martial Law, Drum Head Courts Martial. They
abolished all Civil Law from the Potomac to the Rio Grande,
and subjected 10,000,000 of people to the absolute military
despotism of five generals of the anny.

You know how I struggled against this revolution in the
government; this trampling under foot of the Constitution
which all of them, time and time again, had sworn to support.

But pass over all this, which I cannot think of without
stirring my soul to its depths. Come down to Grant's time,
after there was a pretense by the Republican leaders, that
they had got once more back inside the Constitution.

The Southern States then were still held to have no
rights under the Constitution which the powers at Washing-
ton were bound to respect; and, during all his terms, both of
them, the Constitution was so loosely construed as to give
to Congress and to the executive every power not expressly
denied; and, during all that time the march towards Central-
ized Despotism was steady, constant, and with rapid and
gigantic strides.

Grant, though a great soldier, was never any more fit
for the civil duties of President, whose oath requires him to
support and defend the Constitution, than he has proved him-

469

self to be fit for the head of a Banking House in Wall Street.
He had and has no idea of the limitations imposed by the
Constitution on federal power. He had and has no idea of
the rights of the States reserved under the Constitution.

I believe this revolution now going on in favor of Cen-
tralism is surely undermining our Constitutional Liberties.
For eighteen years, I have been in one long, desperate battle
to resist it, and overcome it, and in trying to turn back the
administration of the government upon the old idea of the
fathers, namely:

That the Union is Sovereign in National affairs, only;

That the States are Sovereign in State affairs;

That the Constitution is over all, defining the powers of
the Union, and resei-ving the powers and rights of the
States, and that in all doubtful questions we should lean not
in favor of, but against Centralization.

I said, I have stiniggled hard to resist this revolution.
I have sought to do it by electing a Democratic President in
1868, 1872, 1876 and 1880— four times. But that has failed.
The revolution is going right on, with rapid strides.

In my heart of hearts, I have sometimes thought no help
can come from man. That God alone is sufficient for this
great woi"k. How He may interfere to save our institutions
is not for human nature to know. But I have sometimes
thought it possible, in spite of your disinclination to take
the place, that the Convention now here, in its sore distress,
not knowing what they can do, will nominate you.

Should such a thing happen, then, my prayer to God is,
that you may be chosen leader to bring back this Republican
Party to the true idea of the Constitution, to the very ideas
on which that party organized, and won its victory, in the
election of your father in 1860.

Enclosed I send you a statement of tvhat in substance
I would hope to see in your letter of acceptance on three
great questions, which, I hope, if you are nominated, will ap-
pear by the first of July, before the meeting of the Democratic
Convention, of which I am to be a member from Wisconsin.

We do not know what may happen. But should this
happen, I think I should see a silver lining on the sky, and
that my hopes of the future would brighten. To save Re-

470

publican and Constitutional Liberty is all I desire for my
countrymen. I ask nothing for myself. If its salvation can
come by a Republican President, I will rejoice. If it comes
by a Democratic President, I will rejoice. If it could come
by a President chosen by a whole people, I would rejoice still
more. !

This letter is, of course, the confidential letter of a
friend speaking from his heart to the honored son of his
friend of many years.

Sincerely yours,

J. R. DOOLITTLE.

Note: The above is a carbon copy of what purports to be a letter written
to the Hon. Robert T. Lincoln, the son of the Martyred President, Abraham
Lincoln, by the Hon. James R. Doolittle, for twelve years a United States
Senator from Wisconsin, from 1857 to 1869. As the "carbon copy," which was
found by the contributor among the private papers and documents of the late
Ex-Senator Doolittle, was unsigned, I deemed it proper to ascertain if, in fact,
such a letter had been received by Mr. Lincoln before offering it for publication.
Also, if he would have any objection to its publication. The correspondence
bearing upon the matter follows. — Duane Mowry.

2442 Chestnut Street,
Milwaukee, Wisconsin,

January 29, 1916.
Hon. Robert T. LiNCOLisr,

Chicago, 111.

My dear Mr. Lincoln: In a recent examination of the
letters and documents of the late ex-Senator James R. Doo-
little, I have found a typewritten copy of what purports to be
a letter to you from Judge Doolittle. It is dated at Chicago
as of June 3, 1884, and is marked "private and confidential."
It deals with political and historical matters, and largely
concerns your father, and, incidentally, yourself. It is, how-
ever, of enough general interest to warrant its publication.

I am writing to you to know if you have any objection
to its publication? I do not make it a practice to publish
letters written to the living, or written by the li\dng, unless
I have their permission to do so. I presume you know of this
letter, and I need not identify it further or more particularly.

Awaiting your reply, I am,

Very sincerely yours,

DuANE MOWEY.

471

Mr. Lincoln 's xery prompt reply follows :

New York, February 4, 1916.

DuANE MowEY, Esquire,

2442 Chestnut Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

My dear Mr. Mowry: Your favor respecting the letter
of Senator Doolittle reaches me here via Chicago and "Wash-
ington.

After thirty years I cannot recall any special letter from
Senator Doolittle. Many such things have been destroyed.
But if this one exists, it is now inaccessible, being in my old
files in my closed-up house in Manchester, Vermont, where
I camiot be until spring, either to look for the letter or for
any preserved reply to it.

It is my guess that I would have no objection to its pub-
lication. I am to be at the Pullman Building, Chicago, next
Monday and probably at least until Tuesday noon. If, there-
fore, you will send me for inspection your typewritten copy,
I -udll examine it and return it to you with my reply, which,
as I have said, will probably be an assent to your wish.

Very truly yours,

EoBEET T. Lincoln.

Following is the contributor's note inclosing the copy
of Judge Doolittle 's letter above mentioned :

Milwaukee, Wis., Feb. 6, 1916.

Hon. Eobert T. Lincoln,
Pullman Building,
Chicago, 111.

My dear Mr. Lincoln :

In accordance with the letter just received by special
delivery from New York, I am enclosing the copy of Judge
Doolittle 's letter for your inspection and direction. It is
possible, in addition to the permission to publish this letter,
I may wish to make use of it in connection with a biography

472

of Senator Doolittle, which the heirs of Mr. Doolittle desire
to have me prepare.

Thanking you in advance for yonr kindness in this matter,
I beg to remain, Very truly yours,

DUANE MOWEY.

Mr. Lincoln's answer, returning the typewritten copy of
Senator Doolittle 's letter, is as follows :

The Pullman Company,
Office of the Chairman.

February 8, 1916.
My dear Mr. Mowry:

I found your letter of the 6th instant here on my arrival
yesterday, but I have not been able to give it attention
until now.

I return to you the typewritten copy or draft of the letter
from Senator Doolittle, addressed to me and dated June 3d,
1884, which I have read with great interest and attention. It
is so remarkable a letter that I am quite certain I should
remember it if I had seen it before, but I do not recall it at
all and I, therefore, have a very strong belief that it is a draft
of a letter which he never sent to me. I have two possible
ways of ascertaining my correctness as to this — my own file
of letters received in which I have retained anything that I
regarded as worth keeping when I went over my files some
years ago, and I think this letter from Senator Doolittle would
have been put in my permanent file at that time ; next I have
my letter press books in perfect order, and it is certain that
I would have acknowledged to Senator DooUttle any such
letter as this, and that a copy of my acknowledgment would
be in its proper place. Unfortunately, all of these papers
are in a special room of mine at my country place in Man-
chester, Vermont, which is for the winter entirely closed up,
no person living in the house, its oversight being entrusted
to employes living in nearby cottages, and the situation is
such that I cannot have a search in this matter made by any
one there. So do not expect to return to Vermont until late

473

next April, and therefore a search in this matter cannot be
made before that time.

Feeling strongly, as I do, that Senator Doolittle never
sent this letter to me, I feel, of course, that I have no right
whatever to express an opinion as to its publication as a part
of the work upon which you are engaged.

It occurs to me that the question of the letter having been
sent might be solved by yourself if you find among the Sena-
tor's papers any acknowledgment from me. If you do find
such a letter and will send it to me I will take pleasure in
writing you further in this matter. Believe me,

Very truly yours,

EoBEBT T. Lincoln.
Duane Mowry, Esq.,

2442 Chestnut Street,

Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The contributor, not being quite satisfied with Mr. Lin-
coln's very courteous and full reply, sent him the following:

Milwaukee, Wis., February 15, 1916.

My dear Mr. Lincoln:

I have your favor of the 8th inst., with the Doolittle letter
inclosed, or, as I believe it to be, the carbon copy of a letter
directed to 3'OU by Judge Doolittle.

Since receiving your letter I have made a further search
among the letters and documents of the late Senator Doolittle
for the purpose of finding some evidence of the acknowledg-
ment of the letter from you, but without success. I do not
claim to have all of Judge Doolittle 's private papers and cor-
respondence. But I have many hundreds of these documents.
Several hundred have already been presented to historical
societies by myself. I am sure, however, that one from you
was not included in the list.

I agree ^\'ith you that the letter is important enough to
have elicited a reply of some kind. I hope, when you return
to your summer home in Vermont, you will feel inclined to

474

make an investigation of your letters and of your letter press
books, with a view of establishing the existence of both.

I might add, in passing, that the Doolittle letter sounds
like the great commoner. He was a strong party man, but
above and beyond party fealty was his lofty and high-minded
patriotism. It was his thought that you might have been the
man of the hour for his country's good. This letter clearly
foreshadows that idea. Although a Democrat in 1884, he
would have preferred the success of a Republican presidential
candidate, if such success would have spelled greater advan-
tage to his country.

But I should not inflict this long letter on your attention.

Trusting to hear from you presently, I beg to remain,

Very truly yours,

DUANE MOWKY.

Hon. Eobert T. Lincoln,

The Pullman Company,
Chicago.

The final letter from Mr. Lincoln incloses a letter press
copy of Mr. Lincoln's acknowledgment of the receipt of Sena-
tor Doolittle 's letter, which is as follows :

Washington, D. C, June 9, 1884.
My dear Sir:

I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of June
3d, wliich I have read with great interest.

I have not at any time supposed that the contingency
would occur upon which your friendly suggestions were based,
and I am not at all disappointed. Please accept the assur-
ances of my appreciation of the kind sentiments you express.

I am, Very truly yours,

EoBEET T. Lincoln.
Hon. J. E. Doolittle,
Chicago, HI.

475

A part of Mr. Lincoln's final letter to the contributor,
under date of May 20, 1916, is as follows :

I have delayed acknowledging your kindness so that I
might upon getting here (La his Vermont home) look up my
files in regard to the letter of Senator Doolittle. I have now
done so and am not able to find that letter. It was probably
destroyed with an immense number of old letters and papers
when I broke up my residence in Chicago about five years
ago, but I find in one of my letter books a letter to Senator
Doolittle which acknowledges the receipt of a letter which is
mth little doubt the one of which you sent me a copy. I
enclose you a copy of my reply from my letter book. Senator
Doolittle 's letter to me was dated June 3rd, and my acknowl-
edgment of it June 9th. I find upon examination that the
Eepublican National Convention in 1884 was held in Chicago
on June 6th, Mr. Blaine being nominated on the fourth ballot,
and the reference in my note to my lack of disappointment
is explained by the fact that the number of votes necessary
to a choice was something over four hundred, and that the
highest vote for me was eight, and that six of my ardent sup-
porters probably went over to Mr. Blaine on the last ballot.

Believe me. Very truly yours,

EoBERT T. Lincoln.
Duane Mowry, Esq.

THE INDIAN BORDER WAR OF 1876.

By Mes. Cynthia J. Capeon,

(From letters written by her husband, Lieut. Thaddeus
H. Capron.)

On the 7th of April of the centennial year a lieutenant of
the Ninth Infantry was traveling northward from Cheyenne.
The road was muddy and the weather cold, yet the family in
the ambulance was in luxurious circumstances compared with
the parties of men on their way to the Black Hills, who were
passed every now and then. Most of them were on foot, with
their baggage on wagons, some of which had been loaded too
heavily and had broken down.

There was but one house the first twenty-five miles, and
there they changed mules. The road to Chug Water was
barren of interest, except the view of Chimney Eock. There
was a small settlement at Chug Water, and the ambulance
arrived there at 9 o 'clock the first night, and at Fort Laramie
before dark the second day. Hospitable doors were opened
for the reception of the lieutenant and family, and old ac-
quaintances welcomed them. In a few days they were domi-
ciled in the best set of available quarters and the officers and
ladies of the garrison called.

The commanding officer, General Bradley, had been de-
tailed to assist in representing the army at the Centennial,
and he with the members of his delightful family soon left,
leaving Colonel Townsend in command.

For a little time things go on as usual in time of peace.
The band comes out to guard mounting in the morning and the
children play around, enjoying the maneuvers and the music ;
and again the band plays for an hour before sundown. Then
the cannon boom announces the hour of "retreat" and
simultaneously the flag is hauled down, and the sun disap-
pears from the western horizon.

If there is no school the children recite their lessons to
their parents. In mild weather people almost live on their

476

i IPS

477

porches, and generally, the houses were in those days built
around a square — the parade ground — each house being in
full view of the others.

There was a sense of nearness and a feeling of sociability
which must be missed by the veterans now stationed in the
large posts of the present day.

Fort Laramie is close to the Laramie Eiver and not far
from its confluence with the North Platte. There were adobe
walls, with a corner house having small opening to shoot from,
built by a fur company before the post was established. This
was now the "corrall." Aside from this, there was nothing
like fortifications at Fort Laramie.

There had been an expedition against the Indians in the
winter before, which owing to the very cold weather at that
time (30 degrees below zero), did not accomplish what was
expected. Colonel Stanton, who had gone as a volunteer, and
Captain Eagan were the heroes of the expedition.

April 9th General Crook telegraphed that he should pro-
tect the road to the Black Hills, which was equal to a notifica-
tion to the soldiers that they would have a summer in tents.
Indians had begun to kill people on the road to the Hills, and
just before, Mr. Brown of the firm of Brown & Gilmore, was
shot on the stage about seventy-five miles from Fort Laramie.
He had gone to the Hills to establish a stage line and was on
his way back.

The slaughter house and corrall at Red Cloud had been
burned by Indians the week before. Preparations were at
this time being made to send out a large expedition. Sup-
plies were being sent to Fort Fetterman, eighty-one miles
northwest of Fort Laramie, where the expedition was to
start out.

Scouting parties were constantly going out from Fort
Laramie and escort duty was often in demand. Finally the
order came detailing Companies C, G and H of the Ninth
Infantry to go on the expedition. Lieutenant Capron moved
his family from "Bedlam" to a more desirable set of quar-
ters, which had been vacated, and on May 22d he started
for Fetterman with the three companies of infantrj^ com-
manded by Captains Burt, Burroughs and Munson, and Lieu-
tenant Eobertson and Dr. Albert Hartsuff.

478

After marching over a rough country, some of the hills
being bare of vegetation, and finding sage brush, stunted
pines and groves of cottonwood trees at intervals, our infantry
was joined by the cavalry under Colonel Royall, May 27th,
opposite Fort Fetterman. There was no communication by
mail between Laramie and Fetterman, although there was by
telegraph. The cavalry left Laramie after the infantry, the
officers calling on the families of those gone before and offer-
ing to take letters.

The command which left Fetterman May 29th consisted
of ten companies of the Third Cavalry under Major Evans
and five companies of the Second Cavalry under Major Noyes,
all commanded by Colonel Royall. Three companies of the
Ninth were under Major Burt, and Captain Luhn's and Cap-
tain Caine 's companies of the Fourth Infantry, all commanded
by Colonel Chambers. (This was written a number of years
ago.) Of the officers mentioned in Lieutenant Capron's diary
and letters one was Captain J. G. Bourke, aide to General
Crook. He wrote much upon anthropology and folk lore and
was president of the American Folk Lore Society of Phila-
delphia. Some of his works were "The Snake Dance of the
Moqui," "An Apache Campaign" and "On the Border with
Crook." He died in June, 1896.

Another aide of General Crook's was Lieutenant Walter
S. Schuyler, late colonel of the Forty-sixth Infantry.

There was Lieutenant Lemly, now a retired captain;
Lieutenant Emmett Crawford, beloved of his comrades, who
was slain by Mexican troops in 1886; Lieutenant Charles
King, adjutant of the Fifth Cavalry, now General King, the
famous author.

General Crook died m 1890, regretted by all. Colonel
Royall died a few years ago. Captain Guy V. Henry, who
was seriously wounded, lived to be a general and governor
of Porto Rico. He died October 27, 1899. General Merritt
has been retired, a major general. General S. S. Sumner,
now in the Philippines, was in 1876 the captain of a company
in the Fifth Cavalry, which did good service. Captain Mont-
gomery, now a major on the retired list, was also a captain
in that regiment. His company, seated upon their gray

479

horses, was universally admired; handsome captain, a fit
commander.

The good "Old Munson," as he was affectionately called,
has joined the majority. The story of how, at the battle of
Slim Butts, he at the risk of his life, rescued a squaw from
among the flying bullets, has been told in print more than
once.

Other officers mentioned are: Dewees, Andruss, Andrews,
Furey, Q. M., Stanton, P. M., Foster, Luhn, Noyes, Nickerson,
Burke, Seton, Sibley, Kingsbury, Caine, Carpenter, Van Vliet,
Meinhold, Tobey, Vroom, Davis, Bubb and Rockefeller.

Reporters Strahom, for the New Yoi'k Times and Rocky
Mountain News ; Wasson, of the Alta California ; Davenport,
New York Herald; McMillan, Inter Ocean, and Finerty, of
the Chicago Times.

At this time the Cheyenne papers represented the road
to the Black Hills as guarded well, and a stream of fortune
hunters was going through their city. Indians were commit-
ting depredations on the Sydney and Loup River routes as
well as this, probably the same who drew rations at the agen-
cies. Some of the most loyal Indians at Red Cloud agency
stood guard every night for fear the northern hostiles would
burn the agency buildings, as they threatened to do if they
did not go with them. Red Cloud was supposed to remain
only to get rations, guns and ammunition for the hostile
Indians. There was no restriction as to ammunition. They
could have all they could buy.

It was supposed that General Crook had a very narrow
escape from a war party after he left Red Cloud agency,
where he had tried in vain to enlist some Indians as soldiers
to go with him on the expedition. Lieutenant Griffitli and
family expected to leave Red Cloud with General Crook, but
were detained till nearly an hour after the general's party
left, and could not overtake it. They took into the ambulance
four of the general 's escort, left on the way for them, and soon
after met the mail carrier and asked him how far ahead the
general was, and he said about a mile. A little farther on
they met another man on horseback. This was ten or fifteen
miles from Red Cloud.

480

The next morning after they broke camp a courier arrived
from Red Cloud with dispatches to tell G-eneral Crook that
the mail cari*ier had been found dead a short distance from
where Lieutenant Griffith met him. The mail was not dis-
turbed, but the horse was taken. The other man they had
met was missing, but his horse was found. It was thought
a party of Indians was after General Crook, as signal fires
were sent up when he started in the morning.

Lieutenant Capron writes home: *'Camp on Tongue
River, June 8, 1876. "We are making a halt here for today at
least, and I avail myself of the first opportmiity to write to
the dear ones at home. I have been in excellent health and
hope it may continue, and I return to you, ere many weeks,
sound and hearty, if I am sunburnt and ragged.

"At Fetterman we were reduced to a wall tent to each
company (the men in shelter tents), therefore Captain Mun-
son and I tent together for the trip. During the evening at
our first camp quite a number called upon us and we enter-
tained them as well as our circumstances would admit, invit-
ing them to take seats on the ground in front of our domicile.
General Crook established his headquarters with our part
of the command. Our march was over exceedingly poor
country, there being little but sage brush and alkali upon the
surface. Burt and Munson took their twenty-mile march on
foot and were a little tired upon arri^'ing in camp. We reached
the South Fork of the Cheyenne River at 3 p. m., where we
found a very good camping ground, with plenty of wood and
water which was strongly tinctured with alkali. The night
was cold and Captain and I decided to consolidate our bed-
ding and sleep together. In the morning it was snowing. We
left camp at 5 :30, our company leading and I walking.

"The first casualty of the trip occurred that day. A man
of the cavalry accidentally shot himself, receiving a wound of
which he died the night before reaching our present camp —
and was buried here last evening, the ten companies of the
Third Cavalry turning out and attending the funeral.

"At Buffalo Wallow we found good grazing for our ani-
mals and plenty of alkali water. We have found very little
game so far — an antelope or sage hen now and then.

481

"June 1st was a cold and disagreeable day. C. Company
being witb the train, the Captain and I rode our animals and
the men occasionally rode on the wagons. We reached a high
divide which the road followed for a long distance. From it
we could see the Big Horn Mountains on one side covered
with snow, and on the other Pumpkin Buttes, a succession of
round hills apparently nearly flat on top. From their peculiar
formation and their height they can be distinguished a long
distance away. We could see Laramie Peak at the left. At
1 :30 we camped on a fork of Powder River at the point known
as Antelope Springs. Burt, who was out hunting, stated that
he found a fresh trail of a small party of Indians, about fifteen
in number. The two companies of the Third returned, not
having found any practicable route shortening our present
road.

"June 2d our road led down the valley of the Dry Powder
for thirteen miles. This stream or dry run is quite heavily
timbered with cottonwood and the valley is about one-fourth
mile in width, while rugged high bluffs in most places form
its boundaries. Occasionally we found water holes, and in
one place found coal in the bed of the creek and also in the
bank.

"After leaving this valley we crossed over a succession
of hills for about three miles, coming into the valley of Powder
River about one mile below Fort Reno, which is located on a
table land on the opposite side of the river. The location was
a good one from a military point of view, but it is a bleak,
barren country, with nothing in natural scenery to attract,
the water more or less alkali, and in the days of the post and
garrison it was unsafe to leave without an escort. It must
have been anything but a desirable place to be stationed.
Little now remains of the post — a few adobe walls and the
numerous graves of those who died from disease or fell vic-
tims to the Indians.

"General Crook rather expected to find 200 Crow Indians
at this place and had sent two companies of cavaliy ahead
of us to meet them; but we found no Crow Indians, and the
general sent his guides to their country, distant about 200
miles. They are expected to meet us on Tongue River. I was

482

on duty as ''officer of the day" and was awake and watchful
at night. On the morning of the 3d, the march before us being
a long one, an early start was taken. The country we passed
over was a nice rolling prairie, with a fair growth of grass
and no sage brush. We were nearing the mountains and the
scenery was grand, reminding me of California. We camped
at Crazy Woman's Creek, having marched twenty-six miles.
Captain Munson indulged in the walking exercise and upon
arriving in camp was pretty well used up, at least for the day.
I walked about one-half the distance. In the afternoon I was
taken with sick headache, and till about 2 in the morning did
not sleep. Upon waking found myself quite weak and mis-
erable. I kept as quiet as possible during the day, marching
with the command on the back of my pony.

"We continued our way to Fort Phil Kearney, the road
leading but a few miles from the foothills at the base of the
Big Horn Mountains. Antelope were seen quite often trotting
over the hills and standing on the highest points watching
our movements. A few were killed, but more escaped the
shots of the few hunters we had out.

"We arrived at Clear Fork Creek at 2 p. m., having
marched twenty-two miles. During the day it was quite warm
and often a glance was cast toward the snow clad peaks, with
a wish for a few moments in closer proximity. Clear Fork
is a beautiful stream with swift current and rocky bottom.
It was the first good water since leaving Fetterman. Fish
were quite plenty. They could not be caught with hook and
line and the men resorted to other means — shooting, seining
and spearing.

' ' I sat on the bank of the stream for half an hour, watch-
ing the water bound its way over the rocky bed. Its music
cheered me and I went to sleep that night listening to its
murmur. Was awakened before 4 o'clock by Boyer announc-
ing that breakfast was ready, and at 4:.30 we were again on
the road.

"From the heights a beautiful view presented itself. On
one side the snow-capped mountains and foothills covered
with bright verdure, and on the other a beautiful sheet of
water nestling among the hills. At this point we made a halt

483

so that all might fully enjoy it. Our road then led us through
little valleys covered with fine grass, amidst which were a
profusion of \Wld flowers ; then high hills, the ascent of which
was gradual, but of considerable length, which I fully realized
as I was leading the column and company on foot.

"At last we rounded a prominent point and in a beautiful
little valley we saw the remains of Fort Phil Kearney, of
which very little was left. A portion of the charred stockade
and a few posts at the corner of an old brick yard, with a huge
pile of broken brick; the sweeps and boxes for mixing the
clay; and last the cemetery, which contains all that remains
of those who met their fate at the Fetterman massacre. They
lie buried in one large grave — eighty-one! The vandals had
broken do^Ti the monument of brick that was erected to mark
their resting place, but the immense grave had not been
disturbed. The place was one of the worst that could have
been selected for a military post, as it was almost surrounded
by high hills, from which the Indians could fire into the post.

"After bathing in the cool stream and donning clean
clothes, we felt like new beings, and Munson and I started off
on our round to call on the officers of the cavalry camp.
Returning to our tent at 10 o'clock, we were soon asleep. The
announcement that breakfast was ready came at 4 o'clock."

After a hasty toilet they emerged from their tent and
partook of broiled buffalo steak, fried potatoes, hot biscuit
and cotfee. At 5 they were on the road and making for Tongue
River.

Over the ridge was the rock that marked the spot where
Fetterman 's command perished; and where it is said Colonel
Fetterman and another officer shot each other. The position
was a strong one, but the poor fellows were there with Little
or no ammunition, surrounded by thousands of Indians.

Lieutenant Capron wrote : ' ' Their fate has taught us a
lasting lesson, by which all will profit, and the care which we
now take in having ammunition in abundance will prevent
such a catastrophe again." This the 8th of June, and the
Custer massacre on the 25th by the same Indians. Crook's
command w^as pursuing and battled with on the 17th of the
same month. It will be seen in the account of the battle that

484

the cavalry escaped Custer's fate by being recalled after they
had started for the village.

The road followed the direction of Eeno Creek and after-
wards Prairie Dog Creek. They went into camp on a plateau
with plenty of fine grazing and wood and water. During the
day buffalo had been seen and some were killed. Major Noyes
had left with an escort on a fishing excursion, but not finding
the command that night he "camped in the country," as one
of his men expressed it. During his absence he saw several
elk and four grizzlies.

They wore now in the very heart of the Indian country,
yet they found no late Indian signs, and up to the time of
their arrival at Tongue Eiver could not be positive that an
Indian had been seen. This was explained later when their
large deserted camp on the Rosebud was found.

In coming do~v\ai a hill near Phil Kearney, Sergeant
O'Leary of Company C, Ninth Infantry, was tipped over in
an ambulance and had his back hurt and an arm broken. With
true soldierly pride he had walked every step of the way
until this unlucky morning, and being quite unwell the sur-
geon ordered him into the ambulance. Nothing to do but obey
orders in the army.

The first night after arriving on the Tongue River an
Indian appeared on the bluffs across the river from camp
and went through a harangue, only one question of which
could be understood — whether there were any half-breeds or
Crows -with them. At first they thought he might be one of
the friendly Crows they were expecting. There were all kinds
of conjectures, but they finally concluded that he was a Sioux
brave showing his daring in this way. Some feared the scouts
had been captured and that he had come to brag of it. Scouts
had been sent to friendly Indians, and Crows, Snakes and
Utes were expected. These allies were to find out where the
villages were and assist in fighting.

The afternoon of the 9th at six o'clock, just after in-
spection, the pickets, who were on the bluffs the same side of
the river, but further down, commenced firing and signaling
to the command. They had antieiioated an attack from this
direction, if there was one, and at first they were puzzled to
tell in what direction the Indians were. Then they saw over

485

•

the river on the opposite bluffs several Indians who fired into
the camp. He says: "The leaden missives came very near,
but did no damage at first. Companies C, G and H were soon
formed and counted off by fours, as if for drill or dress
parade, and marched to the sui:)port of the pickets on the hills.
As they marched along in good style and until they took a
position in the hills, the Indians kept up a strong tire upon
them, but for some reason no one was hit. Four companies
of Cavalry mounted and crossed the river above camp, then
dismounting they deployed a skirmish line, and advanced to
the bluffs driving the enemj- from his place in fine style. Two
Cavalry men were slightly wounded, and two horses in our
camj? ; one mule in the Cavalry camp. ' ' This little affair gave
those who were inclined to be timid great confidence, and
they were confirmed in the belief some people had those days,
that a few white men could whip a large number of Indians.

Upon the troops leaving Fort Laramie, one captain who
did not go, said that with his company he could repulse all
the Indians who might attack him. When General Crook sent
couriers with dispatches to Fetterman or Laramie, one letter
from each officer was allowed, and a few from the private
soldiers. These opportunities were very rare and one time
the officers mail was forgotten Avhen a messenger was sent.
They soon raised a purse of $75 with which another courier
was hired.

At Fort Laramie reports often came in of Indians going
from the agencies to join the hostiles. At one time agency
Indians said there were 2700 lodges with Sitting Bull, that
Sitting Bull sent his compliments to General Crook and Gen-
eral Crook would have no trouble finding him; to just follow
the Indians; that there would be a midnight attack upon the
troops every night after they left Fotteiman. At another
time Sitting Bull sent word to Red Cloud agency that he had
plenty of reinforcements to fight Crook, liut if they found
they had not, they would turn back and destroy everything
north of the Platte river — the agencies first.

Towards the middle of June some officers went down to
Cheyenne to attend a court martial. They stopped at Philips'
ranch one night, and while there, about forty Indians drove
off a lot of stock from a ranch a mile north of them.

486

When General Sheridan came through Fort Laramie he
was very anxious about Crook.

The news of the attack of the 9th came after he had left
for Eed Cloud, and the dispatch was sent to him. He visited
the military post but not the agency. Upon this trip he saw
but one Indian, and this satisfied the General that the Indians
had gone north. Upon his return to Laramie he ordered the
companies of the 5th Cavalry, that were there awaiting orders,
to go nearby to the Black Hills, and then strike off for Powder
River towards General Crook. It was supposed before this
that they were going to Eed Cloud.

General Sheridan left for the east June 20th, and the
next day another dispatch came from General Crook, and as
was customary, an orderly carried it to all the officers' quar-
ters so that the families of those in the field might read it,
as well as others who were interested. This is an exact copy :
"Snakes and crows joined General Crook 15th inst. Crook
left next day for Sioux encampment with four days' rations.
Infantry all mounted went with him. Gibbon is near Sioux
encampment. Crook hojjes to meet him and Terry there and
have a grand time. Gruard, Eenshaw, and Big Bat, got
through 0. K. Came back with 180 Crows."

This was the expedition which encountered the Indians
and fought them on the Eosebud June 17th, and returned to
their camps the 19th.

The scouts, Frank Gruard and Louis Richard (pro-
nounced Reshaw) were quite famous, and did good service
throughout the summer.

Early in June Spotted Tail went through Laramie on
his way to Denver. Whatever his chief business was he took
back a large quantity of ammunition; but this was not known
till later in the summer.

The remains of his daughter and those of another member
of his tribe had reposed for years on two high platforms near
the hospital. At this time it was not knowoi whether Spotted
Tail was really friendly to us.

From a letter I wrote June 23rd: "Gen. Crook's forces
camped on the field the night of their fight with the Sioux;
but owing to short rations, they were obliged to return to
their camp. This is unfortunate as nothing less than exterm-

487

ination will prevent Indians from claiming the victory. A
decisive battle might have sufficed, but now the soldiers will
have to be out all summer, hard at work, riding in hot
weather, enduring hunger and thirst, and fighting warriors
who number three for every soldier, and every one mounted
and armed as well as the soldier.

No one can accuse the government of partiality for the
white man on the frontier; for through its Indian traders it
has supplied for years the best anns and ammunition to the
Indians, so that their camps are perfect magazines.

The Sioux chief Spotted Tail was at this post a few days
ago. When he passed through on his way to Cheyenne he
said he was going to Denver, and told several different stoiies
about the object of his journey. On his return, he sent the
remains of his daughter home to the agency, which some
consider a sign of future hostility.

His daughter requested him to be always the white
man's friend, and that she might be left near the fort, where
her spirit could hear the martial music. He has been friendly
and has kept most of his people from the war path. He says
he told Sitting Bull two years ago, he might live with him,
but he would not, and he doesn't care now if Gen. Crook does
whip him.

Spotted Tail is the best representative of his nation, as
to sagacity, dignity and good manners. "Wlien invited to dine
with a gentleman he regards all the niceties of etiquette as
strictly as the gentleman himself. He was dressed in green
pantaloons trimmed at the side with Indian ornamentation;
a pair of small moccasins elaborately beaded, a large, dark
blue blanket tidily disposed, having a white stripe do\vn the
middle of the back. His hair is smooth and black. One of
the ladies invited him into her house and although he must
have understood what was said, he answered only through an
interpreter. Several ladies went in to see him, and made a
good deal of him, giving him some polite compliments which
pleased him. They asked how the ladies at the agency were
when he left. He said the ladies had never invited him to
their house, nor had they ever shaken hands with him. That
seemed to imply that he didn't know how they were.

488

I asked if he remembered going out with Lieut. Capron
after ponies. He said yes, and he hadn't found them yet;
the white men had taken a good many of his ponies, but he
didn't care.

Eight companies of the 5th Cavalry left yesterday for
the North. Buffalo Bill goes with them as guide.

I remember his fine figure as he stood by the Sutler store,
straight and slender, with his scarlet shirt belted in, and his
long hair distinguishing him as the well known character
so much more widely known since.

^Vhen Gen. Crook started out June 16th with cavalry
and mounted infantiy, it was to strike into the hills and
overtake the Indians; so wagons and baggage were left in
camp. The first day they saw large herds of buffalo. They
camped about eight o'clock on the Rosebud.

The next morning they started with the expectation of
making a fifty mile march but very soon Indian signs were
discovered in the shape of cloths nailed to trees (which meant
fight), and in a few minutes their Indians reported that they
had found some Indians, and went out to skirmish with
them.

In the meantime the command was halted, and ready for
whatever might occur. Lieut. Capron writes: "The General
waited for developments in order to make his disposition of
troops. The developments soon came in the shape of a
general attack upon us by the Sioux. They commenced the
attack upon our front, but in a short time they were in all
directions.

About 8 :30 the battle fairly opened ; the troops advancing
in different directions to hold positions and repulse the attack.
It was repulsed, our positions held, and assistance was given
at a i^oint where very strong resistance was made. Nine
companies of the cavalry were made a party to go and charge
the village supposed to be located about ten miles distant.

' ' Our command of mounted infantry were at first ordered
to go with this party, but were afterwards ordered elsewhere.
Burt and Burrowes were ordered to cover the withdrawal of
some of the cavalry companies, in order to get them ready
for the trip to the village.

489

"They made a nice advance and took the position they
were ordered to proceed to. Two companies of the 4th In-
fantiy and Co. C were ordered to drive the Indians from a
position in our front. We deployed, and made an advance,
driving the Indians for nearly two miles. Gen. Crook 's horse
was shot under him when near our line. The party going
after the village was ordered back, as the entire force of
Indians was massing in front of their village, and it was
thought that they would not be strong enough to maintain
themselves. We fought nearly six hours. Col. Henry of the
3rd Cavalry' is seriously wounded. Our loss was nine killed
and twenty-one wounded. Loss of Sioux estimated to be
one hundred."

Letter of June 25th — Camp on Wind River: "We left
our camp on Goose Creek the 21st. C. Co. and Luhns of the
4th are on our way to Fettemian with the supply train (104
wagons) and have with us the sick and wounded. Col.
Chambers is in command. We travel with great care, and
keep a continual lookout. Going back, we are to have six
more companies — five infantiy and one cavalry."

Here was a week's travel in army wagons, for the
wounded men, and when they reached Fetterman there were
83 miles more to Rock Creek Station on the Union Pacific.
When they retui*ned to camp after the battle there wei'e one
and a half days of being dragged behind horses on small
trees arranged so that a man could lie upon them. There
was no alternative, for at any time, 'the whole command might
be following after the Indians. Col. Heniy, they said, bore
all this without a murmur, and I have no doubt the others
also did.

From diary of June 27th:

"Capt. Nickerson and I left the train and started ahead.
When about twenty miles out, Nickerson being quite tired,
I left him when within four miles of Fetterman and went on
to see about ferry boat, and get news from home. Crossed
but once when the cable broke, and no crossing except in a
small boat. The wounded were all ferried over in this
manner, and officers had to go to and from camp and post
in the small boat. DeLaney has given up his leave and joins
company 40. Expect him tonight."

490

That night at 8 o'clock, with three men of his company
who volunteered to go (Sergeant Butler, Dillon and Gran-
lierry), Lieutenant Capron left, riding on horseback until
morning, when they hid themselves and rested three hours.
They arrived at Fort Laramie at half past 2 in the afternoon,
having ridden eighty-one miles in eighteen and a half hours
without a change of horses. Having received the news of the
death of his two-years-old son, he made this special trip home.

While Lieutenant Capron was in Fort Laramie a telegram
came, of which the follo^\'ing is a copy: "Agent telegraphs
from Eed Cloud that Indians have come in and say that an-
other tight has taken place between northern Indians and
some troops, not Croohs, and that during the fight a village
was entirely destroyed. (For General Crook.) "

When the news of the Custer fight reached Fort Laramie
it was surmised that the report the Indians had given out —
of victory for the government troops — had been for the pur-
pose of leading Crook into an attack, for which they would
be prepared.

An account of the Custer massacre, giving the statement
of a trapper who says he was a prisoner in the camp of Sitting
Bull and saw the fight, I copy from an old paper, Eidgely was
taken prisoner in the Black Hills, but claimed to come from
Fort Garry, and on account of being a British subject was
treated kindly. He escaped just after the battle. Quotation :

"Eidgely says that Sitting Bull organized his forces to
drive the miners out of the Black Hills. Mounted couriers
from Sitting Bull's camp had for eight days watched every
move of the military previous to Custer's attack. Eidgely
says the Indians observed every movement of Custer's force,
its division into small detachments being noted with mani-
festations of extreme delight. Ambuscades were at once pre-
pared by the Indians, and Eidgely states that while the
Indians stood ready for the attack, many of them climbed on
the side hills overlooking Custer's line of march.

"The Indian camp was divided by a bluff or ridge, the
point of which ran towards the Eosebud and in the direction
of one of the available fords on the river. The Indians had
crossed the river to camp by this ford, and Custer had fol-
lowed their trail down to the water's edge.

491

''From this point of observation there were but twenty-
five tepees visible to Custer, but there were seventy-five double
tepees behind the bluffs not to be seen by the soldiers. Custer
attached the smaller village and was immediately met by a
force of 1,500 or 2,000 Indians in regular order of battle.

"Eidgely says he stood on the side of a hill where he had
a complete view of the battle, which was not more than a mile
and a half distant. Custer began the fight in a ravine near the
ford, and fully one-half his command seemed to be unhorsed
at the first fire. Then the soldiers retreated towards the hill
in the rear and were shot down on the way with surprising
rapidity, the commanding officer falling from his horse in the
middle of the engagement, which commenced at 11 a. m. and
did not last more than forty-five minutes.

"After the massacre the Indians returned to camp with
six prisoners, and delirious with joy over their success.

"Ridgely says Custer's command had been slaughtered
before a shot was fired by Reno's force attacking the lower
end of camp about 2 p. m."

Lieutenant Capron returned from Fort Laramie to Fet-
terman, making the ride in one day and night. When he re-
turned to the road after a rest in the hills where he was hiding
with his men, he found a fresh trail of about twelve Indians
who had passed since he had left the road.

He writes : * ' Col. Chambers informed me soon after my
arrival that he wanted me as adjutant of the infantry bat-
tallion for the expedition and I have this duty to perform
instead of company duty. In many respects it will be far
pleasanter and I consider it something of an honor to be
selected for the position, having as we have a command of
ten companies."

There Avas some delay in getting the stores ferried over
the river but the train left July 4th.

July 8th he says: "Louis Richard joined us today and
brought us fearful news, that of the death of Custer and most
of his command. At first, we could hardly believe that such
news was true. A few hours after, were received another
dispatch confirming the first in most particulars. We all
have confidence in our commanding general, and feel that he

492

will be careful in his movements, and look after his
command."

July 9th: "The command was quite melancholy, and the
topic of conversation was the loss of General Custer and his
command. Louis Richard says that on Monday the 3d, twelve
Cheyennes made an attack on five men, and without doubt it
was the part}' whose trail I came across as I went on the road
after my rest. ' '

"July 11 — When near Phil Kearney we saw in the dis-
tance a column of horsemen, whether Indians or Cavalry we
could not make out. They proved to be Wells ' and Rawolles '
comi^anies of the 2nd Cavalry, which had been ordered out to
meet the train and assist in gaiarding it through the camp.
We learned from them that Sibley and Finerty of the Times,
had been out with a scouting party of twenty-five soldiers
and two guides. A number of Indians attacked them, and
they were obliged to make their escape on foot, taking to the
timber and rocks, and fortunately getting through to camp."

They arrived at General Crook's camp on Goose Creek
July loth, and many came out to meet them. Here the seenei^y
was fine — mountains in the background covered with dense
forests of pine, and nearer, cliffs of granite several hundred
feet in heighth. On the 24th word was received that the 5th
Cavalry would not come as soon as expected. Washakie, a
very fine looking and intelligent Indian, was there with 220
of ins Snake Indians. Communication with General Terry
was carried on by means of couriers, and cooperation planned.
All was ready, and they were only waiting for the 5th Cavalry.

The General became very uneasy. General Crook's reply,
accepting the offer to send him the 5th Cavalry, did not reach
Laramie until July 17th. Just about this time, it was at
Rawhide Creek, twenty miles from Laramie.

Supposing General Merritt was too far away to know of
their movements, a party of from six to eight hundred Chey-
enne Indians left Red Cloud for the north. General Merritt
was notified, and he intercepted them, turning them back,
and following to their agency. After this there was some de-
lay. General Merritt fearing trouble at Red Cloud. He finally
started about the time that General Crook received word of
their delay.

493

A newspaper item tells how the Indians were located.
"It was in the Sioux campaign, twenty-one years ago. Stan-
ton (now General Stanton) with General Merritt and his com-
mand, had travelled twenty-five miles that daj\ It was mid-
day at Eawhide Buttes, when a dispatch from Sheridan over-
took them. He ordered Merritt to discover at once what the
Indians at Red Cloud Agency were doing. Sheridan under-
stood that they were making war medicine, and about to leave
the agency and join Sitting Bull. Red Cloud Agency was just
an even hundred miles from Rawhide Buttes as the crow
flies, without trail or path between,

Stanton with twenty-five miles already behind him that
day, took four of his scouts and started. They rode in on the
Red Ooud Agency at midnight. They had covered the one
hundred miles in just twelve hours — half of it in the dark."

The story of the surprise of the war party on their way
to join Sitting Bull by the 5th Cavalry, as told by General
King in the Chicago Inter Ocean, March 31, 1889, is the most
brilliant bit of word painting I ever read. As it appears in
"Campaigning with Crook" it is toned down and not so
striking.

Meanwhile General Crook's command was patiently
waiting.

The last of July, clouds of grasshoppers filled the air,
and crawled on the ground as in the year 1874 in Nebraska.
They remained only a short time, however.

"August 2nd, scouts came in with the information that
the Indians were not far away, below them. The same day
others came with the news that Gen. Memtt was approach-
ing, and that all were well at Laramie but very anxious.
Orders were issued to move the next day, which they did, and
joined Gen. Merritt 's command at their camp that night.

The 5th Cavalry and 9th Infantry had served together
before, and there was a pleasant reunion and talk of Arizona
campaigns.

Captains Mason, Montgomery, Pi-ice, Hayes, and Wood-
son, were among the officers who called at the infantry camp
that evening.

494

"One day just before the news came of the Custer
tragedy, there were but thirteen men reported for duty at
Fort Laramie.

"Three companies were stationed there nominally, but
escort duty, and guarding the road, and going after Indians,
sometimes left a very small garrison.

There was a long time after this, that no one knew
where the main body of Indians was, and it seemed quite
possible that Sitting Bull might make a raid as he threatened
to do. As the soldiers were in the North he could capture
a post full of supplies for his army very easily. He did not
choose to tiy this, but before the time Gen. Crook was ready
to start out and push things, these cunning Indians had
divided up and were getting supplies in the old way — from
isolated ranches, and poorly guarded wagon trains.

Begiiming about the 1st of Aug-ust, after General Merritt
was out of their way ; small bands infested the country around
Laramie, and further away.

They would run otf stock between Laramie and Fetter-
man and from near Cheyenne to the Black Hills. They had a
rendezvous from which it was supposed they sent captured
horses to their headquarters. They were very rarely pun-
ished, for before a call for the one cavalry company left
between Cheyenne and Gen. Crook, could reach them, and the
cavalry start out, they were gone beyond hope of catching
them — Captain Egau's company was always going on these
disappointing trips. There was no use saying nothing could
be done even when every one knew it.

On August 5th the command again left the wagon train.
This time the infantry on foot. Pack mules carried a blanket
and overcoat for each man, and 150 rounds of ammunition.
They took 15 days rations — field rations— which means hard
bread, bacon, coffee and sugar.

Major Furey was left in charge of the train mth 200
citizen employees. Major Arthur and two surgeons remained
with him. The connnand consisted of 25 companies of cavalry
under Gen. Merritt, ten companies of infantry under Col.
Chambers, and about 300 Indians and scouts giving a total of
about 2000 men.

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•

The second day they marched along the Tongue River.
The bluffs came do^\^l to the waters edge, frequently making
it necessary to cross the river, which they did thirteen times
that day. Lieut. Capron says in his diary that once in cross-
ing, he was obliged to jump from his horse into the water
above his knees, which seemed to cheer up the men a little
who had to wade across. There was a chance to wash and
dry their clothing when they arrived at camp. The next day
they crossed over to the Rosebud. They continued with the
hard marches along this river or creek, and on the 8th the
scouts found large trails about ten miles farther down than
the place of tlie fight of the 17th of June. It was very large
and indicated that all the Indians were moving. At first they
thought the trail more recent than they aftenvards supposed
it to be.

A night march was ordered hoping to overtake the hos-
tiles. Lieut. Capron says: "At 6:30 the entire command
started for a night march in pursuit, finding the trails easily.
Before dark we passed the ground occupied by their village.
At this place the valley was three-fourths of a mile in width,
and the village had extended over the entire valley for nearly
two miles. It was judged that at least 12,000 Indians had
been in camp here.

There were high cliff's on each side from which ap-
proaches could be discovei'ed and a strong position taken.

The moon arose about nine o'clock from behind a high
bluff, a bank of clouds reflecting its light before it made its
appearance.

Every little while we would come upon the deserted
camps strewn with the bones of game, and with the remains
of their wickeope.

Arriving at eleven o'clock near the canon of the Rose-
bud, the cavalry went into camp, and at 1. a. m. we arrived
with a portion of the cavalry and the pack train.

The scouts ascertained that the trail was still dowTi the
Rosebud.

The next day couriers from Fetterman arrived, but they
had left the mail with the train, as Major Furey thought it
unsafe to send it on.

496

Gen. Terry's command joined them on the Rosebud 20
miles from the Yellowstone the 10th. Gen. Terry's command
was nearly the same in number as Gen, Crook's, so there
were about 4,000 when together. Their supplies were re-
plenished from Gen. Terry's wagon train, and then they fol-
lowed the trail over the Tongue Eiver. Gen. Terry had two
steamers on the Yellowstone, and the train with some troops
left for the Yellowstone, ivhere they would go by steamer to
either the mouth of Tongue River or Powder River as desired.
They found the trains scattering, and from this time on indi-
cations were that the Indians from the agencies had gone
back, and those remaining with Sitting Bull, had gone North.

Lieut. Capron was the fortunate possessor of a rubber
blanket which afforded some shelter from the rain when put
up on stakes.

The 11th and 12th it rained, and every one was wet in-
cluding Gen. Crook, who fared no better than others.

They arrived at the mouth of Powder River on the
Yellowstone the 17th and w^aited in the vicinity till the 24th.
One of the steamers went up to the Rosebud and brought
more supplies. Some of the officers went along and reported
that the place selected for the post at the mouth of the
Tongue River, a very fine location.

The friendly Indians saw a steamer here for the first tim.e,
and gazed in wonder. Two boat loads of sutler goods sup-
plied a few of the most pressing needs, for those who had
money with them. Onions $.04 a pound. Lieut. Capron
writes: "For dinner yesterday we had a nice dish of beans,
some onions, and our usual amount of bacon and hard bread.
This is what we call luxuiy. Quite a number shared with
us, accepting our hospitality, and enjoying the meal as much
as under ordinary circumstances a meal at Delmonico's would
be relished.

It is imderstood that Gen. Terry's infantry will leave this
place for their respective posts. His cavalry will probably go
with us for about 100 miles, then leave for one of their posts
for supplies. "We should do the same — go to our posts or the
train." The friendly Indians left for their agencies, as they
thought there was no possibility of a fight, and as their only
remuneration was to be what was captured from the Sioux,

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•

th'oy thought it would not pay to use up their ponies, with no
prospect of replacing them. Hard marching was beginning
to tell, and Major Burrowes with some others who were un-
able to keep on, left for home on the steamer. Crook's com-
mand left the Yellowstone, going in the direction of the Little
Missouri River, farther east, and in four days they came in
sight of the bluffs along that river.

That night there was a dreadful hailstonn. Hailstones
two-thirds as large as a hen's egg. Men stood with their backs
to the stoiTn, with no shelter. Officers were flooded out from
the shelter they had made with their blankets. Several horses
were stampeded in the storm and darkness, and three jumped
over the bank into a creek and were drowned.

The men were becoming tired of hard bread and bacon
for a steady diet, and tried fried cactus. Some could eat it.

September 1st Frank Gruard reported a large trail and
a smaller one turning off towards the agencies.

On the 2nd the expedition crossed Stanleys trail of 1873.
They camped on the Little Missouri the 4th and found a coal
mine burning which looked as if it might have been burning
.a long time. It was covered with clay, and through it the
smoke issued in places.

September 5th camped on the head waters of the Heart
River. Here Gen. Crook decided to go to the Black Hills,
distant about 180 miles. They had but about two days ra-
tions, and many were opposed to the move.

September 7th Rainy day; marched 33 miles and no wood.
The next day, rained nearly all day. Marched twenty-five
miles and found but little wood. ' '

Account of the Battle of Slim Buttes. Letter of Sept.
10th. "Day before yesterday Col. Mills with four officers
and one hundred and fifty soldiers, and a portion of the
pack train was sent ahead to secure rations. On the evening
of the 8th he discovei-ed an Indian village, bid his command,
and yesterday moniing about 3:30 he charged the village,
and captured it with about 180 ponies. A few Indians were
killed, while some escaped to the hills. It was handsomely
done, and Col. IMills, Tjieut. Bubb, Lieut. Crawford, Lieut.
Von Leutwitz, and Lieut. Sehwotka, "wnth others engaged,

498

clesei"ve great credit. We were on the march and the rain
pouring down, when we received the news, an